


Sword of Damocles

by AngelOfDeath10



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Drama, F/M, Inappropriate Behavior, Romance, Seriously I didn't like the canon age gap, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, less of an age gap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:20:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23251600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelOfDeath10/pseuds/AngelOfDeath10
Summary: Sakura doesn't know when her relationship with Sasori began to shift, but there was always a promise behind the threat. With his whole existence a political play she'll never know if she's part of the plot or a complication to it.  Medieval AU.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Sasori
Comments: 43
Kudos: 106





	1. Chapter 1

Sakura spat out some blood from where she was sprawled on the ground. She was happy there was no tooth intermixed with the gore laced saliva. Running a tongue against the split inside her lip, the ringing in her ears from the hit she had taken from Zabuza's sword hilt finally subsided. If it hadn't been an exhibition match for the amusement of their lords he would have killed her already. Only the watchful eyes of Sasori and Kisame kept her head on her shoulders.

Duke Sasori. Count Kisame.

Kisame was laughing, saying something to Sasori with a tone that told Sakura more than the words ever would have—she was weak, this match was boring, there was no way some country girl playing at knighthood could beat a blooded and experienced knight like Zabuza. The anger dulled the pain and somehow her feet found purchase under her as her inner fire lit. Sasori's expression flickered a moment—concern, pride—but it was gone so fast Sakura was sure she had imagined it. His face was a beatific mask as always with hooded eyes and a lazy smile.

Duke Sasori, Sasori of the Red Sands, didn't have compassion. He did have plenty of pride, however. It was probably the only thing they had in common.

"It would have been smarter to stay down, little girl." Zabuza's comment was mostly for her but no doubt the others heard it as well. It was his warning, as he wasn't going to hold back just because she was younger and a woman. Sakura hadn't expected him to, so as her sweaty grip on her thinner sword tightened they circled one another again. Thinking she saw an opening she struck out, quick as a viper, but Zabuza countered with a flick of his wrists. Her mistake earlier was getting too close, assuming his larger and heavier two handed sword would be slow.

Sensing that she was getting smarter about this skirmish, Zabuza smirked. They traded strikes until Zabuza tired of the exercise and bore down with quick slashing movements from the right and left. She countered the strikes, her muscles straining to keep the steel from slashing open the sides of her arms. Kisame had known she would agree to this when he'd had the temerity of suggesting that Sakura duel Zabuza's squire. She couldn't ignore a slight like that even if Haku was a better match size and weapon-wise for her. Sakura could have possibly beaten Haku, but she didn't have enough practice fighting men nearly twice her mass with broadswords and challenging Zabuza had been a misstep.

Zabuza was bearing down on her again, having gotten close enough so that they were nearly hilt to hilt. "You'd be more use to his grace on your back than with a sword in your hand." His words made her see red.

Her headbutt probably broke his nose. She could hear the crunch and the blood began to stream immediately. Ino had always said her hard head was her greatest asset, and maybe this one time Sakura would agree.

The larger man roared and forced her down into the dirt, their swords now trapped between them. He looked ready to actually kill her, and from her prone position she didn't have enough leverage to stop the large hands from encircling her neck. Gurgling and scrabbling at his large forearms, tearing out strips of skin with her nails, she felt the world start to dim when Sasori's voice rung out over the encroaching blackness.

"I said enough!" Zabuza gave one more squeeze for good measure before he stood up, but his dark eyes promised retribution if he ever caught her alone. The large man stood and walked over to his squire, who was ready to tend to the tender nose that still streamed blood.

Sakura lay in the dirt a few more moments, glad to be alive, wishing she were stronger.

"She's got a little bit of spirit, I'll give you that," Kisame said, talking about her like you might talk about a horse. Maybe it was a compliment to rate as highly as a horse in the count's eyes.

"Most assassins aren't the size of a barn and carrying a broadsword. If Zabuza hadn't played so roughly with her perhaps we could have seen her stretch her muscles with the squire. Your man lacks control, Kisame." Sasori's voice was like oil, oozing over Sakura as she stared at the grey sky. It was about time to stand up, her brain told her, but her body didn't want to comply.

Lucky for everyone, it was mostly her head and mouth that had sustained injuries, so Sakura was able to finally rise with at least a little bit of grace and walk with unquaking muscles back over to Sasori before she knelt before him. The fence that enclosed the sparring ring was between them, but Sakura would be a fool to say that was the only distance that separated her from her liege lord.

"Disappointing showing, my lady. Perhaps next time you'll accept the fight presented to you instead of seeking another. Clean yourself and tend to your face. I expect to see you at supper." Sasori's words made Kisame chuckle, but they weren't said for the count's benefit.

"Yes, your grace" Sakura's hand tightened around her sword hilt, words sliding through her aching jaw. She wondered if there would ever come a day when she could escape this life, but she was certain that wouldn't happen until everyone she loved in this world left it. The duke was her punishment from heaven for wanting something unnatural. She would never be a knight, she would always be a lady playing at being a knight.

Her father had told her it would be a hard road to walk to be a warrior, but at ten she hadn't really understood what he meant.

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"You broke his nose, Sakura." Sasori said as he walked into her small room adjacent to his own. As his personal bodyguard, she had to be accessible at all times and the empty servant's chamber had been ideal for that purpose. She remembered how she had had to clean it out herself when she had arrived three years ago to his fortress on the edge of civilization. It had seemed appropriate somehow that it was full of spider's nests and rotten wood.

"Will I be expected to apologize, your grace?" She asked, aware she was only clad in a loose tunic and pants. They were dirty from her fight, stinking of sweat and blood.

Sasori considered her words as he watched her continue to carefully wipe her face with a cloth around her bruised jaw. "The count seems to find it most amusing, so an apology isn't required. However, you may consider making amends unless you wish to have an enemy in Zabuza. He'll be at the tourney next month and isn't above revenge for slights to his legendary strength."

"He was ready to kill me for drawing blood in a practice match. I can't imagine any way I could make amends that would be meaningful." Sakura thought about the other men she had defeated in one way or another and how they never seemed to forget or fully forgive. If a man fought another man and injured him they came away with mutual respect, but she hadn't found that to be true most times she fought similarly hard won matches.

Her breath caught in her still sore throat as she felt callused fingers slide over the red marks at her neck. The indentation of large fingers was still there. Sasori eased his over the outline but those slender artist's fingers would never have erased them completely from view. Today was not the day he killed her, was it? She secretly suspected it would not be his enemies that ended her, ultimately.

"Wear a pretty dress. Play up how it was a lucky shot and pour wine into his cup. Smile. I've seen you play such court games before," Sasori was right next to her ear, hands still around her neck. His breath was sweet from the anise she knew her chewed on occasion. "Though you may need to apply color to your face to soften that bruise he left you. I'd leave the marks on your neck. Men like him like a reminder of their dominance."

A monster, Sakura reminded herself, Sasori of the Red Sands got his name from the blood of his enemies that he spilled in melee from the time he was a teen until now. His favorite thing was slitting throats and puncturing thighs, then stringing up the bloodless corpses of his notable enemies outside the walls of the fortress. Any soldier who had to walk the perimeter wore a mask to guard against the smell of rotting flesh. It was part of his myth, that brutality.

But that sensuality was part of the myth as well. The face of an angel with golden eyes, the demeanor of a demon with his henna red hair.

"If you'll recall, I was terrible at those court games as you call them. Lady Yamanaka tried to instruct me last summer, but I was a poor student." Don't remind him of your femininity, her inner voice said, because if he has no use for you he may let that sword he hangs over your head fall. Her own death held no consequence for her, but it was not only her life on the line. At her denial, her tender skin felt his finger tighten at her neck. "But I will do as you instruct, your grace."

The fingers eased and slid from her neck. Sakura prevented herself from releasing her breath in a woosh of relief. After that first year of terror, Sakura swore to herself she would not let Sasori see how he affected her. The uneasy kindness he showed her, the taste of threat that underlay even their casual conversation made Sakura's nerves prickle under her skin. She never slept well in this pile of stones surrounded on one side by virtual desert and on another side by a steep cliff.

"Perhaps you should spend more time with Lady Yamanaka after the tourney. You live in two worlds, my lady knight, and you must be adept in both." He didn't need to add that he was alluding to how he himself was a master at both combat and politics. Being fourth in line for the throne since he was a small child had molded him, as had his poisonous grandmother the dowager duchess, Chiyo.

Her inner voice rattled and screamed, but Sakura calmly replied without turning to face her lord. "Yes, your grace."

The door closed with a click. He was molding her, conditioning her, and Sakura was smart enough to see it for what it was but she didn't know why.

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Lips rouged to draw attention away from the bruised skin of her jaw, Sakura smiled and leaned forward while drawing her arms together ever so slightly. The wine flowed into Zabuza's cup but he was drinking his fill of Sakura's modest pale cleavage before he ever had a sip of wine. The slap he delivered to her ass as she retreated told her that her mission was successful. Back to inconsequential in the larger knight's eyes. Now if only the knight's squire Haku would stop looking daggers at her, things would be right with the world for the moment. At least she could take secret satisfaction in the bandage drawn tight over Zabuza's nose. He'd be breathing through his mouth for a while thanks to her, but he seemed like a mouth breather anyway so perhaps he wouldn't even notice.

As if to insert a little bit of defiance in Sasori's order, she had worn her nicest dress. Well, to be honest she had less than a handful to choose from, but the one she had picked in midnight blue with silver patterns stitched at every hem and at her waist was one Sasori had gifted to her when she had first been presented at court years ago. She hadn't worn it since. The rich fabric had seemed as heavy as chains that night as she was forced to dance with nobleman after nobleman at a feast that tasted like ash in her mouth, but tonight it felt light and as she secreted herself away in a corner for a breath of air the wine cup she downed without a pause was rich with mulled spices.

Carefully touching her face, feeling the shock of pain that it caused, she almost didn't sense the person behind her until it was too late. As Sasori had said, she was a match for Haku's quickness in a way that she never could have met Zabuza's brute strength. The knife the squire held stuck the stones instead of her stomach.

"You have a little skill, I'll give you that. Good instincts at the very least." The younger man was smiling, his long black hair tied behind him with a piece of leather. It was beautiful hair and Sakura felt a spark of envy thinking of her own shorn pink locks. Sasori had long ago drilled into her mind the uselessness of long hair on a knight. Would Haku cut it when he became a knight?

"This dress is worth more than my life. Better that you came for me in the night. But I suspect you have plans to be elsewhere tonight." She nodded over to where Zabuza was carousing with Sasori's other knights. Usually Sakura was standing silently at Sasori's side through dinner and taking a quiet meal on her own in her room later. Playing serving wench had amused more than just Zabuza this night and she would be fighting to gain back the respect she was losing. Perhaps this was also a way for Sasori to punish her for losing a fight she shouldn't have picked. It was hard to tell.

Haku gave a liquid shrug. "It seemed as if your eyes were straying from where they should be." His smile was bright, but his words were cold.

"You couldn't pay me to fuck your master." Sakura sneered, disgusted to say the words out loud.

"All the same, Lady, I needed to make my point. You wouldn't be the first person overwhelmed by him that later came to find his strength intoxicating."

The wine she had just downed seemed to turn sour in her stomach as an unbidden image of Zabuza rutting against her flashed in her mind's eye. "Trust me, squire, I want nothing to do with him that involves body contact. Combat or otherwise."

That being settled, the squire actually seemed to relax around her. The smile was less brittle and more friendly. Sakura suspected that had Haku been in her position he would not have struggled with 'court games' the way she did. Her emotions were too honest, internally and externally.

"The dress suits you better than your armor. Perhaps you should talk to your blacksmith and have them adjust your chestplate. It sits poorly around your center and the gap would be easy to slide a blade into." It might have been a threat still, but it sounded like casual advice, Sakura decided to ignore the hidden meaning and take the words at face value.

Sakura felt her makeup itch and reminded herself not to scratch it both because it would reveal her bruising but also because the act itself would be most painful. "Aye, I've been trying to secure time with him but he's been busy since the Uchiha's rebels have been testing the borders. A bodyguard's armor is ceremonial at best and what I wore to greet you was for formal purposes only. I spend most of my time in mail shirts and they have all the flexibility I need."

Haku had been waiting for the return barb and slowly blinked with confusion as it didn't come. Sakura smiled and gave a little salute with her empty cup.

"It's about time I got back to serving. Perhaps when I'm healed from today we can have that bout. I shouldn't have disregarded the skills of a squire, you almost gutted me just now." Fighting Haku might be a good test of skills, after all, as the slight man seemed more inclined to assassination than melee. She didn't often get the chance to fight an outsider, and she needed to know if her skills had improved in the past years.

"For what it's worth, you're not what I expected, Lady Haruno." Haku's slightly more respectful words to her back made Sakura's mouth quirk up but that tiny genuine smile flattened out immediately as she spotted Sasori watching her with displeasure flitting across his face. He didn't like that Sakura was smiling and exiting a dark corner with a man, no doubt. Even if he obviously knew Haku had no interest in her, he had been coaching her on removing emotion from her interactions with others. She would pay for her display because it reminded her lord of how he didn't control her as completely as he wished.

Swearing under her breath, she grabbed another jug of wine from a server and stalked up to fill Zabuza's cup before filling Sasori's as well. Absently, she found herself mouthing the same emptyheaded good wishes that she had been cooing at Zabuza. Her tone was saccharine.

"My lord, you look in fine spirits tonight, surely—" Any other words were cut off as Sasori grabbed her wrist. Some wine sloshed onto the table from the jug and Sakura felt her throat close immediately with anxiety.

"Save it. Don't practice your pitiful arts with me unless you're ready to play at my level."

He was… angry. That was a surprise. Sakura bowed her head to hide her glee at accidentally goading a reaction from the duke. "Yes, your grace."

She took her place next to his chair, one step back. But tonight even he couldn't stop her self-satisfied smile, blood gruesomely staining her teeth from her injured mouth.


	2. Chapter 2

After days of travel Sakura should have been too tired to awaken this alert, but she had already been up twice in the night to fetch a drink of water or to look out of the warped glass window in her small room. Judging by the female sighs during the water she fetched, and the masculine moans as she squinted through the window the duke was having a busy night. Doubtless he was trying to get his trysting done in a single evening, if possible. He did so hate having to feign passion for an extended duration.

Sakura's duties didn't begin until approximately when the duke slept, which was often around three or four in the morning when they were visiting the capitol and he was on court hours. Adjusting her mail shirt and pulling on her red doublet to hide it, she was grateful the duke didn't force her to dress as a lady when she stood guard even if it was a requirement for her waking hours off duty.

His room was mere steps from hers and she gave the customary knock and entered to find him relaxing in a bath, face neutral and eyes closed. Still as the grave. Anyone else might have thought him dead, but Sakura knew better as she looked for the faintest of tells such as the rise and fall of his chest in the water. He didn't bother to crack an eye until she closed the distance between them.

"My lord, if I had known you were to bathe the chambermaids should have known to summon me." The expectation was that it was the vulnerable moments in which he needed a guard—bathing, sleep, and occasionally meetings that required concentration that might otherwise compromise his senses.

"Calm yourself, Sakura, I told them not to disturb you. My activities were not so distracting that I felt incapable of defending myself." He slid a stiletto knife from the water and dropped it on the ground with a clatter, where Sakura fetched it and dried it before setting it under his pillow as was his practice.

Whatever men or women Sasori had slept with this night, Sakura wondered if they understood the price they were really paying for the pleasure of a hole filled by this dangerous man. Probably not, as Sasori's looks seemed to blind people to the actual cost. There would be favors needing repayment, sometimes blackmail, and that's if they were lucky. Any nobleman or woman foolish enough to love the duke would be drained of usefulness and abandoned as ruthlessly as the corpses they had passed on the way out of fortress a week ago.

"Vespers tourney is the day after tomorrow. As per usual you will be released from your nighttime duties tomorrow to rest before your matches. I hear Count Kisame suggested changing up the order to force you to face Haku but the banners and criers had announced the line up a week ago and the crown prince declined the request."

Sakura shifted on her feet, eager to prove herself yet again in the tourney but well aware the fact that she was always declined entry to the actual tournament and being forced to joust the squires was probably her lot in the order of things. She would always be the joke, the oddity, a pet the infamous Sasori of the Red Sands kept to amuse himself.

"No comments about the unfairness of the world? The pigheadedness of the men of the court? Have you come to accept your lot?" Sasori knew how to bait her, and she resisted the urge to spin around and argue. Of course inside of herself she raged at their inability to acknowledge her growing prowess, but she also knew there were more men like Zabuza slavering for a chance to knock her down should she be invited to enter their world. "Good girl, you're learning at last the futility of throwing emotion at an inflexible problem."

The snort she gave escaped before she could stop it, and she assumed it was because she was tired.

"… or you're getting better at hiding your displeasure." She counted herself lucky that tonight he was amused by her emotions instead of irritated. Perhaps all the fucking he had forced himself to participate in had been quicker or less messy than past sessions. His skin hadn't looked red or raw from the inevitable scrubbing he gave himself after such activities from the brief glance she had gotten of him in his bath. She hadn't looked very long.

Not that she hadn't seen every inch of him in detail over and over again from the first month of their association and beyond. He delighted in forcing her to watch him bathe to test the bounds of her maidenly discomfort at first, and while she no longer experienced any embarrassment over his nakedness, she still faced away as simply staring at him for minutes on end was otherwise awkward. What could she meditate on while amber eyes weighed her soul?

"I've wagered a small sum on you to be sporting with Kankuro, but given your performance last year he almost wouldn't take the bet. I'd tell you to throw your match if I thought you would obey me, but you use those emotions of yours to fight and I doubt you'd remember in the moment." She could hear water shifting and supposed he was gesturing.

"As you say, your grace." Sakura agreed, proud of her past showings even if it was just against squires. Absently, she wondered if he had come during sex at all or simply faked it. If anyone could fake something like that, it was her duke. She knew he wasn't totally sex averse, entirely. There had been one particularly memorable incident a year ago when she had accidentally walked in on him masturbating but instead of telling her to leave until he finished he simply stopped. He had answered her question, which she had asked in halting sentences, as he sat in his desk with his erect member out of his clothing. Then he had simply stuffed it away and went back to presumably writing correspondence or making battle plans or whatever he had been doing before he touched himself. She never could remember what she had asked him, or even his answer to her if she was going to be honest.

It wasn't even in the top five of strange interactions Sakura had had with him, but surely it was in the top twenty.

"Drying cloth." Sasori said simply and Sakura turned around at last to fetch a cloth from the stack neatly piled on a chair near to him. He stood out of the cloudy scented water and Sakura dispassionately was treated to a full-frontal view of the man as water sluiced down his body and back into the bath. A few moles here or there, a fine scar or two, but largely he was all lean muscle and smooth skin. He didn't look like a warrior, but then that exposed how deadly he actually was because a less competent killer would have more scars to tell the story of past battles.

Unexpectedly, their hands touched as he accepted the cloth, and Sakura flinched.

"We've been over this, lady knight…"

Sakura cursed herself in all the languages she knew in her own mind. He would be asleep in less than twenty minutes and then all she would have had to do was ensure he stayed asleep and undisturbed for the scant five or so hours he allowed his body to rest. Then she would have had a whole glorious day off before her tourney—Sasori free.

Dripping, clad only in a cloth knotted around his middle, Sasori pushed her solar plexus with a water puckered finger until she stumbled backwards onto the bed. She felt his damp hand slide under the layers of her doublet, chain, and undershirt to leave a clammy trail up her tight stomach.

"Your weakness reflects on me, even in private. Every mistake will be repaid," She knew he wouldn't rape her. The power games he played were mental not physical, but even so there was a creeping feeling in the back of her mind that three years ago he would have simply forced her to recite poetry as his slapped her until she could get through without a stumble or angry glance and this hand on her bare skin was _new_. "Until you learn perfection as easily as if it were breathing."

It felt like swarms of ants where his fingers brushed her, "As you will it, your grace," Her stomach muscle were leaping, but by the gods please let him think it was reflex and not a continued panicked reaction to the intimacy of their situation. This was a man who had to bathe thoroughly to get the stink and fluids of others flushed from him after sex. And here he was, tracing the skin around her bellybutton and watching her expression closely. To see if she'd stop him.

Then, like a ghost, the hand was gone as if it had never been there with only a dry throat and a few droplets of water to let her know it had been real. Sasori was already across the room and pulling on a nightshirt while talking of small matters he wanted her to see to on the morrow. Sakura tried to hold on to the words, but they were slipping through her fingers as if she were trying to catch fish in the stream at her childhood home.

Home. That was a sobering thought. She stood at up immediately from the bed and focused on her lord.

It was going to be a long night with only her thoughts and the dim outline of the devil in the canopied bed.

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As Sakura lounged on a twee bit of furniture that groaned under the weight of all her mail and muscle she listened in amusement to the argument taking place mere feet away beyond the door.

"… you featherbrained ninny! Waking me in a panic like that, I ought to have an ear sliced from your head! I told you, quite clearly, about the Lady Haruno and given she's the only person in court with pink hair I'd think her reputation would have preceded her even in whatever rural inbred bit of nowhere you're from…"

There were low murmurs which Sakura assumed were groveling apologies, but she knew from the beginning she was headed for amusement when the Ino's new lady's maid spotted her in the sitting room of the suite and had a panic. An unannounced male! Scandal! The doorman knew Sakura these past years and had simply let her in with a bow.

Sakura was examining some of Ino's embroidery in the late morning sun when the lady herself made a grumpy entrance. Her mass of pale blond hair had been quickly tied behind her instead of in some intricate new in-fashion capitol style so clearly Ino had been lazing around in bed.

"You did that on purpose!" Ino plopped down nearby, careful to avoid the shaft of sunlight that Sakura was partially standing in. "Tea and snacks will come presently, which is why I think you're really here because I'm sure you jailer doesn't give you any treats."

"Shhh, dammit Ino could you say that so the whole neighborhood doesn't hear?"

With a wide smile Ino adjusted her skirts and wiped some sleep from the corner of her eye. "I don't say anything the whole court doesn't already think. You do a good impression of a dog for the duke. Bark when he says bark, heel when he says heel…"

Sakura wished sometimes Ino was a man so she could at least rough her up a little. A good punch now and then gave perspective on boundaries. "The duke is my liege lord, not my husband. It isn't like you and, who is it now?"

"You know his name—Sai—you just keep pretending to forget it because he's a merchant's son and not a knight like you. Titles aren't everything. Money talks, too, Sakura."

Food finally appeared, perking Sakura up. Unlike the dull nutritious fare she got with Sasori there were empty calories galore on Ino's tray. Pastries! An actual bowl of sugar for the tea! Porcelain cups with flower designs! A rose in a vase in the middle!

Ino snorted at Sakura's longing expression as she picked up a thick cup with cherry blossoms painted on the side. "You knew I was coming today," Sakura said as she drained the sweet tea in one gulp and admired the craftsmanship even as the rare refined sugar coated her tongue in an unfamiliar way.

"I expected you later, but who says we can't have afternoon tea for breakfast?"

"Is that a new thing in the capitol? A whole new meal between lunch and supper that's nothing but sweets?" Sakura pointedly glanced at Ino's slim waist. "All the ladies will get fat, and then what?"

Ino's feathers were clearly ruffled by the implication she was letting herself go. "It can't all be embroidery and music classes and accounting. I hear it's very popular in Mist, already. Father's shipments of flowers there have exploded as it's expected to have a nice arrangement to help aid digestion." Ino saw Sakura's expression and testily set her cup down with a clatter. "What?!"

"Your life is just so different from mine, I can't believe we live in the same world let alone the same country."

Ino waved her hand, dismissing Sakura's melancholy. "Life moves fast in the city, I'm sure the duke is aware of current fashions. He just curates his own experience in his home."

"Hm, I suppose." Sakura thought about how cold the fortress was, perched where constant winds blew, and of the barren landscape his troops patrolled. Ino had heard of the bodies staked around Sasori's outpost but it was easy to avoid the grim reality of it when it was no more than a story. She'd never watched carrion birds eat out a man's eyeballs over the course of an afternoon from her bedroom window. Her fancy blown glass window shutters overlooked a small urban garden, and opening them was probably an actually pleasant experience. "After the tourney, which you had better come to and cheer for me even if it's just in your mind, I'll need some of that skin cream you gave me last summer."

Groaning, Ino waggled a finger. "What use softening all that brown skin? You spend too much time in the sun and the heat."

"I live in a desert, Ino!"

"A lady wouldn't use that as an excuse! Besides, you said most of that sun exposure is from training. You spend the majority of your actual work time watching the duke sleep."

Only Ino could reduce Sakura's existence to a sentence and not earn some sort of injury from it. Besides, she was right. Sasori himself had unusually pale skin, but then he kept himself wrapped from head to toe when he went out with patrols on the border. The enveloping black cloak and face mask were practical desert wear but he must do something else to keep his skin soft, and the thought that he used skin cream like Ino did was weirdly humanizing. A monster with a skin care routine that wasn't bathing in the blood of his enemies.

"I see that embroidery is coming along," Sakura replied instead of commenting on her barren life. "What is it? Some sort of sunset scene?"

"It's a rose, and you know it, you bitch," Ino laughed, taking the sting away from the insult. "You know I'm a better household manager than an artist. I don't see you making any tapestries in your spare time."

Sakura grimaced, "I've gotten pretty skilled at repairing clothing just the same. No seamstress will come within ten miles of Sasori's home." It had slipped out, his proper name. Sakura had to exert real effort not to clap her hand over her mouth, but the blush spread over her cheeks just the same. It was the lack of sleep, she told herself, and the liberties of his discipline before he slept.

Ino politely ignored Sakura's mistake, but raised blond eyebrows and smiled quietly to herself. Reasonably sure her friend was not so fair weather to spread rumors about her and the duke, Sakura tried to regain her footing with a more pressing topic.

"Did you bet on me again like last year?"

Ino nodded, "And I expect you to triple my monthly allowance tomorrow. Don't disappoint me."

Sakura wondered why she had avoided having female friends for as long as she had during childhood. Maybe if someone like Ino had been in her life she wouldn't have felt it necessary to be a son to her father instead of a daughter. Someone has to defend the property from raiders when you lived on a border, he had said, and so it was imperative to make a good marriage to a strong knight or lord. Unless Sakura wanted to be that defender, he had laughed. But to her young mind it had sounded like she had had a choice, and marriage sounded like a trap.

Ino, for all she had been forcibly betrothed a year ago, didn't seem upset about it. If anything, she talked of it as if looking forward to building a household that was her own. Building a life sounded more noble than taking one from Sakura's side of the divide. But then she thought of how Sasori had praised her the first time she had killed a would-be assassin, practically wrist deep in the man's guts while the duke had emerged from his bed to quietly watch the end of their quick battle. Sakura remembered the relief that she was alive and the other man was dead, and the shame that followed for taking pleasure in any part of the killing.

That's when he had starting commissioning her red doublets with his scorpion symbol above her heart. Sakura glanced down at the symbol he had branded her with, barely seeing it any longer.

She didn't fight for him, she fought for her family he 'guarded' at the border between Suna and Leaf. Her father assured her that Sasori's troops behaved appropriately and didn't act like jailors. But Sakura wondered if he would be honest about that in letters that Sasori no doubt read before they reached her. He had promised her she would be able to visit them someday, perhaps that day would come sooner than later.

Time off for good behavior, her inner voice mocked.


	3. Chapter 3

Katsuyu pranced impatiently as Sakura brushed her down again, nothing else left to do with her nerves firing like they were. Originally gifted by Sasori as a test, Sakura had spent long months conditioning the mare who was still prone to biting and so had to be stabled away from the other horses while they stayed in the capitol. Those high spirits and martial disposition gave them a mutual understanding that had served well in the joust last year. Sakura was banned from the squires' melee after the first year every squire had attempted to chase her down as a pack, her first horse before Katsuyu murdered and nearly sealing her fate as well as it partially fell on top of her. Miraculously she had emerged with little more than a twisted ankle and gone about the bloody business of revenging herself in the single combat matches until her ankle pained her too much to go on and she had forfeited her last match. Year one had been… difficult.

Last year she had placed in the top ten in the single combat and top five in the joust. Precision was her specialty rather than brute force, and it paid off in the joust. Jiraiya had always told her to play to her strengths since by dint of musculature the men she faced would always be more powerful, so she couldn't be like Naruto and smash things until she won by overwhelming energy. She missed Jiraiya that old Leaf lush, in his run-down property next to the Haruno estate. Drank himself into an early grave before Sakura met Sasori, but she'd like to think if he hadn't things might have gone differently for her those years ago. For one, Naruto would have been a messenger away as she couldn't imagine him abandoning his old teacher without resources.

Also, if Jiraiya had been there, Lady Tsunade might have stayed a little longer as well. She missed her teachers almost as much as her parents. Lady Tsunade had taught her so much in such a short time as the still beautiful older woman had tried to save her friend's life. But as the dying perv had said, there wasn't much to be done unless Tsunade was going to travel back in time and knock every drink out of his hands for the past few decades. As if Tsunade was one to talk when it came to that particular vice.

"I hear you, my lord, I'm not so lost in thought I didn't notice the light change when you entered the tent," Sakura turned to see Sasori silently finish his approach. Dressed in unrelieved black, he seemed pleased he couldn't sneak up on her this time. Always testing her awareness, she was grateful for that aspect of his training because particularly in the capitol men of the court thought to teach her their own lesson and after being jumped the first time and her ribs bruised from the resulting fight she had gained a better understanding of how to avoid a bad situation in the first place.

"You're to fight one of Orochimaru's men first, Sir Kabuto's squire if that makes a difference to you," He knew very well that would light a fire in her. She hated Kabuto furiously and Sasori's disdain for Orochimaru was already well known. That match had been made no doubt to attract attention to her fight, as the crowd would dislike to be on the side of Orochimaru's man. Maybe someone would even cheer her on. She wished she knew the crown prince well enough to thank him for declining to change her match to Haku. "Try not to break any of the boy's limbs publicly. He's yet green."

"If only Sir Kabuto were still a squire…"

Sasori smiled that humorless smile he favored when he was internally displeased but not wanting people to know it. Sakura could recognize it a mile away and she wondered how many other people spent enough time around him to understand his subtle expressions. "Like his master, he's quite good at slithering out of consequences."

"That doesn't bring back my horse," Sakura grumbled and patted Katsuyu on the rump. "Is there any other reason you're here, your grace?"

"I have reason to believe you should avoid discarding your sword and moving to daggers in your single combat match with him." Sakura remembered Sasori remarking casually how odd it was that the person Kabuto lost to in his match last year had come down with a rather unusual fever by the time the jousting began. He never casually remarked about anything, though. It was as close as her lord would come to outright warning her not to be poisoned by a treated blade.

"I'll keep my distance, your grace."

Sasori kept eye contact with her until Sakura was first to look away. Every interaction was a chance to dominate, she reminded herself, and wondered why he even bothered to come warn her if she were so useless a tool that he thought she couldn't win with merely her sword against a first-year squire.

It wasn't long before she was suited into her lightest plate armor and sweating on the field of battle. The spaces for the commoners were packed as people ate and yelled and jostled, but the stands for the nobility were not fully populated. A notable exception was Prince Kankuro and her very own duke who were no doubt keep tabs on their wager. Against the glare of morning sunlight, finally Sakura spotted Ino yawning into a scented handkerchief. She knew better than to wave; now was not a time to be friendly.

At the signal of Kankuro, who was acting in place of the crown prince until Gaara decided to make his appearance if he showed up today at all, Sakura walked to the middle of the dusty ring to cross swords with her opponent and begin the match.

"Unnatural bitch!" The squire hissed as their sword slid together for a starting position.

"I'm not the only bitch on this field today," She responded easily, glad that the duke wasn't in earshot to hear her childish retort. It was all that reminiscing about Naruto making her regress, she figured.

Well that got his attention, Sakura's inner voice thought wryly as the squire came at her in a flurry. There wasn't much to the boy, being a first-year squire, and Sakura easily outclassed him in skill. Saving his pride wasn't going to do much for her, and it would only use up energy she needed later so she bore down efficiently. With a twisting motion she had perfected after Sasori had used it on her a few times to dramatic effect, she disarmed the boy and demanded he yield as she pointed her sword tip at his neck.

It hadn't been a very satisfying fight, and Sakura glancing over at Ino to see her bored expression was almost her undoing. The youth screamed out a string of expletives and nearly impaled himself on her sword tip, with only her quick withdrawal saving his life. The long slicing dagger had come from nowhere and she dropped her sword to grab at his wrists at a side angle that had her triceps screaming. The youth must have been gripped with mania because she could hear the pop as his shoulder partially dislocated and still he tried to push the dagger forward into that gap in her armor that Haku had warned her about a month ago.

Rolling them both with a practiced leg sweep, Sakura smashed the youth's hand to the ground until the dagger fell as she straddled his middle. It was a rather unconventional move, more suited to the training she performed when she fought imaginary assassins. Hand to hand combat was less chivalrous than the clash of swords, but her vulgar display had gotten the crowd's attention more so than the pitiful display earlier. Now she'd have to endure endless barbs of how she could wrestle down and straddle any number of knights to win her battles in and out of melee.

"You utter piece of shit, if the duke hadn't told me not to break anything of yours I would be sorely tempted." She growled. The squire just whimpered as the pain of having dislocated and then forcibly relocated his shoulder was finally hitting him.

Standing with only a bit of a sideways list, leaving her opponent in the dirt, Sakura fetched her sword and then saluted Kankuro as the prince announced the winner with more than a little humor shot through his voice. Criers announced her win to the milling crowds, and a few nobles clapped and tittered in the stands. A single person whooped somewhere in the masses, whatever he yelled muffled by distance. Sasori, she noticed, didn't seem to find this funny at all.

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Every bit of her body felt jarred, but particularly her right side where she had held her lances. 9th place, much worse than last year even if it was still top ten, and she blamed it on the weird start to the day she hadn't been able to shake. The feast was beginning and all the squires were being feted for their good efforts, but Sakura had never really been invited to that table. It was unknown to her if either Ino or Sasori had lost or gained money from her efforts, but she supposed it was likely as not both had broken even depending on the terms of the bet.

Stepping into the cold bath that she always requested after a particularly hard day on her body, Sakura bit down on her lip sharply enough to taste a bit of coppery blood. It didn't take much to reopen that particular wound since she spent so much time biting her lips to silence herself these days. After splashing her face and giving her hair a once over with a rough soap that would give her split ends that Ino would scold her for next time they met, she heard a furious knocking at her outside door. Normally, when she was being summoned it was through the connecting door to Sasori's suite of rooms.

"Hold on, I'm in the…" a wild-eyed chambermaid burst in, "…bath." Sakura finished with deep weariness.

"My lady, forgive me, but you're being asked for at the feast and the," the trembling girl swallowed as if she couldn't get the words out without saying a mental prayer to the gods, "The crown prince himself has requested you."

Gaara? Gaara didn't even know she existed. Sakura didn't know what game was in motion, but it didn't sound like one of Sasori's. Sasori enjoyed pulling Sakura's strings and watching her dance for his amusement, but he wasn't in the habit of parading her in front of the court. It was about the only kindness he showed her for the few months of the year Sasori was summoned to the capitol. Maybe her vulgar display from earlier had spread by word of mouth to the crown prince, but he wasn't the kind of man who cared for gossip. Truth be told, he wasn't the kind of man to care about much of anything beyond affairs of state.

"Then you had better prepare a dress for me to put on while I dry myself off, shouldn't you?" Sakura wanted to spend a little longer numbing her limbs, maybe fall asleep early before she had to get up and stand watch over Sasori with a body made of lead, but that didn't seem to be her fate tonight.

Out of the bath she quickly rubbed a cloth over her head until it at least wasn't dripping, and then brushed out her shoulder-length hair and hoped it would dry in the time it took to get all the way down to the dining hall. The chambermaid had picked out a clean breast band, knee high stockings and a chemise. With a sigh, Sakura allowed herself to be dressed when normally she would do it herself. She had run a finger down her midnight blue dress before choosing the green one that was a couple shades darker than her eyes.

"Quickly, my lady," the maid eased leather slippers on her feet and Sakura wondered how women could wander around all day with so little protection for their toes. She already missed her thick leather boots as the cold from the castle hallways seeped in and chilled her further. Maybe a cold bath had been a misstep.

Soon enough Sakura was blinking owlishly in the hot dining hall filled with lanterns and laughter and more people than she had a preference to experience in one spot. Ironic how she had longed for the city as a girl only now to long for the country as a woman. Automatically, her eyes scanned the crowd to find Sasori and began to stride to take her place behind his chair, but a shaking hand halted her.

"This way, my lady," Sasori's expression was blank but attentive as he tracked her progress. Sakura felt helpless as she was practically dragged to the dais upon which the royals ate. Sasori was but a few seats down but clearly she wasn't expected to join him until her summons had been fulfilled.

Unwilling to make eye contact with Gaara as she approached, she only halted when the maid practically pushed her forward and announced her presence in the busy hall. Few had noted her appearance, but more people were nudging and pointing as Sakura tried hard to stare at the floor and become invisible. At first she tried to sink down upon a knee into a normal salute of fealty, but realized that in this guise she needed to curtsy and tried to switch gears halfway through the kneel. By far it was one of the shittiest curtsies she'd ever done and naturally it happened in front of the crown prince.

"I still can't believe you cut your hair!" Naruto's voice had her snapping her head up so fast she felt a muscle tweak down her neck and into her back. "Come on, Gaara, stand her up and get her a chair. I bet this is the only time we'll get to talk before I have to leave."

"You may stand, Lady Haruno." Gaara's monotone shot energy into her legs and she rose with more grace than she had shown before. "My sister has chosen not to join us this evening so you may take her seat next to our esteemed guest."

"Don't mind all his formal talk, Kankuro was telling us the most interesting rumor and when I found out it was you they were talking about I knew it would be the work of a moment to set everyone straight. I mean, it's been a few years since we saw one another last but you couldn't have changed all that much…" Good old Naruto, the brother she wished she had had and her training and sparring partner under Jiraiya's watchful eye for the better part of a decade. He could never get to the point.

"Spit it out N—" This wasn't home and she saw Leaf bodyguards puts hands on their blades as the words started to leave her mouth so she pretended to have a coughing fit before resuming her comment. "How can I help resolve your question, your royal highness?"

Gaara hadn't missed a beat of her disrespect. "Shall I have her whipped for insolence?" It was casually offered, but she knew that was no joke the crown prince was making at her expense. She wondered how many lashes she had earned in his eyes.

"Haha, where were you when I was eleven and she and I were fighting over the last slice of pie? No, this prince business is new enough to me, too." It was a kindness Naruto didn't need to grant her. The winter Jiraiya died was also the winter Tsunade and Naruto had been summoned to Konoha as the oligarchs that had stolen the throne and banished the previous royals were rooted out and killed by royalists. Suddenly a lost prince had value. He was not so new to this as he pretended. "Oy, Sakura, did you really learn that move you used in your first fight in a brothel?"

All the blood drained out of her face and in another life she would have punched Naruto hard in the arm for even asking. But the big idiot was looking at her with those wide sky-blue eyes of his that pretended at innocence better than anyone, and waited for her answer.

"I've never been to a brothel, your royal highness. I have specialized training for close combat and the best thing you can do in a knife fight is disarm your opponent and control their body." Actually, the best thing to do was run, but that wasn't exactly an option she was ever trained for.

Naruto clapped her hard on the back, like he used to when he told a joke she didn't laugh at fast enough, and every muscle he touched locked painfully. Immediately, Naruto realized his mistake and solicitously started to spit out rapid fire apologies under his breath. That blond idiot, didn't he realize the longer they talked the more it was like drawing a target on her back? She had been a nobody before, an embarrassing anomaly, and now she was the childhood friend of the crown prince of Leaf.

Shit.

"I knew it had to be like that. Your hair may be a lot shorter, but you're still the same Sakura."

If Sakura could make him stop talking without causing an international incident she would. Maybe stuff that whole loaf of bread in his face, or dump a glass of wine in his lap.

"Hey, do you know my fiancée Lady Hyuuga? I hear she's shy, mostly keeps to the family property everyone says, but it's an outside chance."

That brought her up short. Political marriage, huh. The Hyuugas were only one line removed from the Akasuna royal line, a big military family. It was a smart match and it would bring the kingdoms together neatly as well as make it hard for insurgents to threaten the Uzumaki rule again. This sounded like something Tsunade would advise Naruto to do, as they had both heard plenty of drunken fireside rants from the older woman about how stupid it was to marry for love.

"Ah, no, your royal highness I don't know the Lady Hyuuga." Naruto looked so deflated, probably nervous knowing him, that she forced herself to add the only thing she vaguely had heard from Ino. "Word is she's beautiful, though."

"Yeah, the old woman," he meant Tsunade and Sakura had to bite her tongue from correcting him now, "showed me a sketch some artist did. There was something real funny about the eyes though…"

This could go on for hours. Naruto was a talker, after all, and his gift of gab really did put people at ease so she couldn't be mad about it. Even the notoriously reclusive Prince Gaara seemed content to let Naruto natter on about nothing in particular, but a guard caught Naruto's eye as a familiar figure in black approached with a perfectly executed bow.

"Your royal highness, I'm flattered that you would condescend to speak to my vassal after her performance in the tourney."

"You're the duke? I hear you've never taken a squire, so Sakura is probably the closest thing you've got. If you're the man that's making her dream come true then Leaf looks on you kindly as long as I'm alive." Naruto also clapped a companionable hand on Sasori's back, but even bent in a partial bow for the sake of respect Sasori didn't move an inch. Knowing how Naruto poorly judged his legendary strength, Sakura was grudgingly impressed by her duke.

However, Sakura was back to dreaming of shoving multiple loaves of bread in her childhood friend's big fat mouth. Made her dream come true, huh? In a sense. In a very _very_ loose sense.

Meanwhile glittering gold eyes held hers and she knew there would be hell to pay for not having told him of her connection to Naruto Uzumaki. Sasori may know many things, but he wouldn't have been privy to knowledge so secret that the inner circles of Leaf didn't even know who or where Naruto was until he was eighteen. Hell, even Naruto didn't know who he really was until he was eighteen.

Sakura still had a few secrets of her own that didn't involve Sasori of the Red Sands.


	4. Chapter 4

Sakura often thought Sasori's eyes were particularly beautiful in a face that was already almost uncanny in its symmetry. The color seemingly changed depending on the light from a dark to pale honey. Sakura felt honey was an excellent analogy in particular because like honey you had to get past a swarm of angry stings to find the sweetness. Too bad all she ever seemed to get was stung.

"You didn't sleep last night." When he awoke the morning after Naruto had outed their connection, he hadn't rattled off a list of errands as per usual. Instead, he looked her up and down, still clad in her uncomfortable green dress. It felt too light and she wished she had at least stopped over and slipped on a chain shirt before the duke had retired for the night.

It had taken time to extract herself from Naruto, and his incessant desire to talk over childhood anecdotes. Clearly, he was terrified about his impending marriage and coronation, and the lure of the uncomplicated past had been too much for him when he found out Sakura was in residence with Sasori. But every winding pastoral story had seemed to darken Sasori's eyes until they were pits into his black heart. By the time he had excused himself and Sakura had dutifully followed, she was colder than her ice bath could ever have made her.

"No, your grace." Don't yawn, her mind helplessly supplied as her body tried to disobey. She knew her face was contorting with the effort not to seem as tired as she was. Everything still ached terribly and she was afraid she was audibly creaking. While she didn't like to take it often, she needed to find some mandragora. It would take time to prepare it sufficiently according to the directions Lady Tsunade had made her memorize years ago, but perhaps the excess could be packed away. She didn't trust any old apothecary, as they were like as not to poison her.

"I'll be attending the tourney today," He climbed out of the bed and pulled off his night shirt before opening the shutters of his window and examining the milling crowd in the courtyard below. Goods and people were constantly shifting as all the nobles that had come for the real tourney were at last making their way to the grounds. The games had been underway a few hours already. "I expect you to maintain a respectful distance from the event after yesterday's telling performance."

She wasn't sure if he meant her fights, or the dinner conversation with Naruto. It didn't really matter, the last place she wanted to be right now was in view of the court.

"Yes, your grace."

As was his practice, he dressed himself without aid. Having not been dismissed, Sakura watched him with unseeing bloodshot eyes. Rolled loincloth, undershirt, doublet, and hose. Usually by now he would have sent her from the room, but impassively he left her to sway on tired feet. The worst was yet to come, she knew, as this silent treatment was probably only because he wasn't yet certain how he wanted her to suffer.

"I think it's time you introduced yourself to the Lady Hyuuga," Sasori said as he draped a golden chain over his doublet and pulled rings of ruby and gold on to his fingers. Today he would be expected to mingle with his peers and he was outfitting himself in armor she didn't usually see him in. "Mustn't disappoint a prince by appearing not to take interest in his life, should we?"

_We._

Sakura felt sick. And not just from the rich sauces and meats that Naruto had filled her plate with as he talked and laughed. She protected her family in her own way, but now she'd be walking a fine line trying to keep Naruto from whatever schemes Sasori had in mind. Hopefully, Tsunade would be a canny enough advisor to keep the worst of it away from Naruto. He'd never been one for intrigue, and hadn't grown up swimming in it. The sooner he was on his way back to Leaf with his future bride in tow, the better off they would all be.

"I have not been invited to speak with the lady, your grace. It's my understanding that the Hyuuga family is founded on tradition and good breeding. I would need a personal summons to be able to converse with the lady as she almost never leaves her home."

"You have a friend in Lady Yamanaka do you not?" _Handle it without my help_ , is what she heard. Yes, he was obviously angry at her. "Now show me you know how to curtsy, unlike that travesty from last night."

On legs trembling with bone deep exhaustion she sank down and held as Sasori approached. He was so close that her measured breaths—an exercise she had learned from Jiraiya to both calm her heart and control pain—appeared to stir the lower hem of his doublet.

"Look at me, lady," His eyes were still dark, but that could have been from the aftereffects of sleep. To think that he would still be processing any emotion about her instead of a cold determination to mold her further was impossible. Turning her chin this way and that with the tips of his long fingers, she wondered if he was taking her measure again. "Not even a blush…"

He left the room outwardly pleased, and Sakura's knees gave out from under her to hit the stone painfully as soon as the door clicked.

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Procuring mandrake, a controlled substance as all poisons were in the capitol, meant paying a visit to the only person in town who both wouldn't be prosecuted for growing such a suspicious plant and who would actually welcome Sakura into their home. Luckily for her, she was also sure that Lady Chiyo would rather do just about anything than make small talk at a noisy tourney. They hadn't spoken in nearly a year, since the old woman had summoned Sakura to speak of nothing consequential and yet take every opportunity to criticize her herbal education at the hands of Lady Tsunade.

Sakura got the feeling as if the two noble women had engaged in a healthy professional rivalry in decades past. They hadn't spoken a single word about Sasori, it had been like he didn't even exist, and perhaps to the dowager duchess that stance was easier than the neglect of her last living relative.

To the point, though, Lady Chiyo had a physician's garden instead of 'useless bits of color' as she called all purely decorative greenery. And Lady Chiyo would no doubt have the books to outline the preparation of mandrogora; Sakura could use the refresher rather than possibly poison herself out of exhaustion and poor memory.

Knocking on the door, she wondered if she should have changed into her mail and hose, but when she awoke at near enough to noon from having collapsed face down on her mattress she hadn't wanted to waste the time to undress and dress again. If the maids whispered about her wrinkled finery she gave them no mind. Not much could be worse than the already well circulated rumors of her supposed years in a brothel.

"So I hear tell you're a whore rescued from a Leaf brothel where you serviced all the Leaf nobles." Lady Chiyo didn't even bother to greet her as she was seen to the veranda where the old woman was enjoying a late meal in the sun. There was a fine blanket draped over her legs to ward off any spring chill, but it would be a grave mistake to assume frailty of the body was accompanied by a frail mind in this woman.

"My Lady," Sakura said, rolling her eyes and balling her fists as she made her curtsy. "You look well."

"No I don't, I look old, but it's nice of you to make time for a visit." Not missing a beat, those eyes that had the same honey color of her grandson narrowed. "What do you want?"

Nothing got by the dowager duchess. She wasn't one to suffer fools or liars either, so it was always better to get to the point. "I need a preparation of mandrogora, or a few mandrake roots if you have nothing on hand. My time in the vespers tourney yesterday did my body no favors."

Crashing into the chair next to Chiyo, the old woman gestured at a servant in the shadows who took off at a run. "Well, I might be able to dig something up in the storehouse, in the meantime why don't you have some food and tell me about this tourney. I assume you gave a few insolent young men black eyes and rode a great smelly horse at full tilt. Barbaric sport, if you ask me."

Sakura tried to give as detailed an account as she could remember of yesterday, but she couldn't keep the bite of frustration from her tone. "They cheered when I was unseated far louder than when I was the victor." She took a large bite of the almond cake that had been brought out after the bread, meat, and soft cheese Chiyo had been nibbling on. It seemed like everyone ate more luxuriously than Sasori, even the woman that had molded him as a child.

"Men always love seeing strong women brought low. I always assumed their cocks were too small and shriveled to understand what they could accomplish with a woman who didn't simper. But I'd wager those same men wouldn't dare eat an almond cake prepared in my house, so take that how you will. Humph." Almond anything in the house of a woman known for her poison garden was probably too much for the stomachs of most nobles.

Chiyo was actually trying to compliment her, and Sakura appreciated the oblique motherly gesture. "I don't know if my letter of thanks reached you for the book of anatomy you sent in winter. I was surprised to receive anything, but your messenger found me before our caravan left for the fortress again. Winter would have been much more bitter without a way to engage my mind."

"And if you had read the note with it you would have known I expect you to return it by this coming winter if you expect to read another one. That was transcribed at great expense and procuring another copy would mean writing to that shameless hussy in Leaf." Chiyo never had a complimentary word for Tsunade. "I'll bet you she never allowed you to walk away with such a treasure."

"No, my lady," Sakura couldn't help but smile.

Stretching out a leg, after sitting so long in one position, she grimaced before she could think to school her features. "You there," Chiyo gestured at a girl who hurried over with that hunted look that seemed to stalk the faces of anyone unlucky enough to serve the Akasuna family in any capacity other than in war. "Take this key and fetch the blue bottle on the shelf above the window in my workshop. Dark blue not light blue. And I'll know if you touch anything because you'll be writhing in pain tonight if you even so much as brush the herbs drying in the back." Sakura wouldn't know if that were true or not, she would have had to see the herbs in question, but the servant fully believed the duchess and who knows what harm could befall the too curious or the too careless. Chiyo's severe demeanor was probably as much to ensure a healthy respect for her workspace as it was to protect the foolish.

"You have mandragora on hand?" Sakura looked at her curiously.

"Pain is universal. My arthritis has been acting up as of late."

For a moment Chiyo looked small and lonely, an old lioness feared by others and who had chosen isolation even when she obviously loved a good chat. That same impulse to shut out the world and internally rail at the stupidity of people in general seemed to be genetic.

"You should take an apprentice, my lady. I know you think the royal physician a hack of the first order. Why not raise a better one?"

Chiyo stared out at her deadly garden and huffed softly. "There's a thought. Bah, but it sounds like too much trouble. Not unless you know someone with half a brain in their head."

"You could always do what the duke did and pluck some promising minor noble out of the countryside." Chiyo's body stiffened instantaneously at the mention of her grandson. It was like Sakura had broken an unspoken cardinal rule to their time together. "I-I mean I'm sure there's some local talent pool—"

"What Sasori did to you—what he does to you—is not an apprenticeship. You know that at least, don't you girl?" Chiyo interrupted.

Sakura nodded, feeling much older than her twenty five years. "He's a cat playing with a mouse. Eventually he'll lose interest and I will be stronger for it. I can endure." Her words sounded hollow to her own ears.

"Just remember, girl," Chiyo made sure to catch her eyes and Sakura hated the way her stomach dropped, full as it was with meat and cake. "Sasori never owned a toy he didn't break."

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She had taken a little too much mandragora. The first dose she had had before she slept appeared to have worn off by the time she stirred at the ungodly hour in the morning that was the start of her duty to her lord. The second dose seemed to tip an inner balance and her mouth felt so dry it might as well have been a desert, heart beating like a drum. Nothing hurt, at least, but her movements felt more like they were happening through water than air.

Given the circumstances, she felt like her first reaction upon Sasori slamming open the door an hour later thann normal, and clumsily, was totally reasonable. She pinched the back of her hand, wondering if this was a hallucination, then pinched herself even harder as a wave of alcoholic aroma wafted from the man who prided himself on moderate social consumption.

He wasn't stumbling, but neither did he have his usual feline gait. Seeing Sakura waiting at ease in his room seemed to spark something as he slowly closed the door with an almost inaudible clunk of a lock and advanced on her with a hooded gaze. The smell of wine and other spirits got stronger as he got closer, and Sakura wondered nervously if the lantern had flickered in the corner or if she was seeing random bursts of light. Meanwhile, her suspiciously twitchy behavior seemed to incite Sasori into saying the words he had been holding back from her last night.

"You fucked him, didn't you?"

"Excuse me, your grace?" She licked her lips, desperately trying to find a drop of moisture somewhere for her parched mouth.

Sasori sneered, those sharp white teeth mere inches from her face. "Uzumaki. You fucked him." If he hadn't been seemingly drunk—and she supposed she shouldn't be surprised that he would be a mean sort of drunk—he might have noticed her own altered state. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. "I recall once you threw the words at me that you weren't some 'blushing virgin' and given that you lived in the middle of nowhere and apparently spent all your time together it makes a pitiful sort of sense,"

It wasn't any of his _damn_ business, but yes, she had. She had been sixteen and after a sparring match that had somehow turned into wrestling, hormones had gotten the better of both of them. It had only lasted a few months before Sakura got tired of Naruto's good faith attempts at an activity he just wasn't any good at yet. The possible risks hadn't been worth the twinge of pleasure she sometimes experienced. In the end her own hand was a more reliable tool in that arena, and Naruto had gotten over the hurt feelings. She had been lucky it hadn't broken their friendship, in retrospect.

"Do you remember what I told you after that charming little display?" The duke traced a finger across her mail shirt so softly she wouldn't have known he was doing it if she wasn't watching him. "Do you?"

He waited for her to answer, and the silence stretched too long while her brain raced. It felt like there wasn't enough air in the room as she finally spoke. "That the only reason I wasn't regularly raped by your soldiers was because of your protection and that that duty to my virtue would fall to the next man I slept with…" It had been no hardship to stay chaste around brutal killers and the rough sort of damaged men that found themselves assigned or chosen for Sasori's border guard. She might be in the prime of life, but she had only rarely felt the need to relieve tension of that sort. Sadly, the mandrogora had stimulated _all_ her senses and the reminder of sex sent an unwelcome tingle to her core.

All the aggression seemed to disappear from Sasori's body language, his voice rough with drink but silken all the same. Sakura wasn't fooled. "In ancient times Leaf used to sends troops into battle with their lovers. It was said that such a practice forged bonds so strong between men that a small force could raze cities and topple tyrants." That finger had traced down her mail shirt while she was distracted with flickers of light at the corners of her vision and the smell of alcohol on Sasori's breath. Her body jerked in shock as his hand cupped her sex through her hose, a few thin strips of cloth all the protection she now had.

She could feel the heat of his palm. A finger started to trace her seam and she shuddered.

"Where do you your loyalties lie, Sakura?"

Her body was reacting outside of her will. The shivering desire that cramped her stomach sparked to life, and the dampness that her mouth sorely needed blossomed below instead. Could she be hallucinating all of this? The possibility that this wasn't reality actually calmed her enough that she found her voice.

"With you, your grace."

That gliding finger had created a groove in her hose and at the crest of every movement she experienced a burst of pleasure that had her feeling depraved. Surely, he saw how she had begun to tense in anticipation. A large part of her mind was disgusted with herself, with the duke, but a sliver wondered how it might be if he continued. If perhaps the obvious arousal he sported right now might show her what she was supposedly missing, as per the ladies of the court who boasted of their lovers. They spoke of such activities as if it were of better sport than a tourney. Sakura had assumed they had just never properly swung a sword.

Before her body could crescendo, Sasori pulled away with look flashing across his face that Sakura could only diagnose as shock. It was gone as soon as Sakura found a word for it. The flecks of light at the edges of her vision moved in time to her rapid pulse as her body ached to continue. He hadn't planned that, her muddled mind supplied. Somehow that insight made her feel less violated.

However, as he stiffly performed his before sleep routine while pretending firmly that Sakura was not in the room, she wondered if this had been an aberration after all. There was no advantage to bedding Sakura or to even feign arousal for her benefit.

If this interlude had been according to Sasori's desire instead, Sakura might be swimming in deeper waters than she ever realized.


	5. Chapter 5

Sitting in a carriage was much less comfortable than riding a horse, Sakura thought, as she was jostled back and forth in the rickety old thing that may have been in fashion in Sasori's parent's time but now seemed a bit gaudy for the current duke. Scorpions on the sides, crimson details all over, rotting cushioned interior, it was a nightmare of a thing which was probably why Sasori never used it. But it was also plastered with the official family crests and it looked much grander than Sakura riding astride in her least favorite dress. Purple really wasn't her color, she thought, as it made her hair seem pinker and her complexion much ruddier. Even red didn't make her feel this frumpy.

In the end it hadn't been Ino who had helped her secure the invitation, but Lady Chiyo. Sakura, in her desperation, had slipped a note to the lady only to get one back that said no more than 'you owe me' and a time and place that she should be expected to be picked up. When the carriage arrived, Sakura had deep second thoughts, but orders were orders and spending a few hours with some reclusive lady sounded a bit like an adventure. Even Ino hadn't ever spoken to the Lady Hinata Hyuuga, but she'd seen her at a distance a few times flanked by family members.

After passing a checkpoint at the edge of the property, Sakura looked out at the rolling fields of grain that was now growing green. It almost seemed like an ocean there was so much of it, and the closer they got to the remote manor the more Sakura wondered why the Hyuugas needed such isolation. They were known for breeding the best of the best of soldiers and generals so surely they would want to be closer to the people they led wouldn't they?

Once they stopped inside the manor's courtyard, she had an inkling as to why perhaps they didn't want the scrutiny of outsiders. Too many of the nobles, and even quite a few of the servants, appeared to have a sameness to them that made Sakura's senses grate. Perhaps it was the straightness of the nose, or the way there wasn't much variance in hair and eye color, but the medical side of her mind whispered _inbreeding_.

Reminding herself not to throw open the door and jump out of this deathtrap, Sakura bounced her leg and waited for the driver to allow her to exit. There was a pretty girl with a severe expression a little younger than Sakura with pale eyes and long dark hair who gestured for Sakura to follow her.

"Welcome, Lady Hyuuga awaits in the north sitting room. Please follow me." No introductions, Sakura noted. Perhaps Sakura didn't need one, given there were few ladies who came even close to resembling her, but it would have been nice to know who she was speaking with. She didn't look like a servant, but a person never knew in a household this full of secrets.

Upon arriving at this 'north' sitting room, Sakura was greeted relatively warmly by the woman she had to assume was Hinata. "Lady Haruno," Hinata approached and they clasped hands lightly, with Hinata pulling hers away quickly, "I was surprised to hear from the duchess. I can't imagine why I would hold any interest for a, ah, warrior such as yourself but she spoke of you most respectfully."

"It's nice to know there's at least one person who doesn't believe the rumors, Lady Hyuuga." Sakura could feel the chilly presence of the maid who had shown her in right behind her. After so many years, she could tell intent to harm from a mile away and that maid was simply drenched in it. Though why Hinata could inspire such hate was beyond her at the moment.

"Please sit down, Lady. Hanabi, could you fetch the refreshment?"

The maid disappeared without a word and Sakura was able to relax a little. It had taken a lot of willpower not to edge her back towards a wall so that she would have a more advantageous fighting position if needed. Now that the maid was moving down the hallway again Sakura could ease out of her fight response to notice how everything in this room oozed money.

As Sakura examined the rich furnishings and elegant tapestries, Hinata lapsed into silence. Not being well versed in filling in conversations with nonsense the way Ino might be, or at the very least out of practice from long seasons spent with only Sasori and his men, Sakura cleared her throat and made her best effort.

"Your estate is quite grand. Impressive fields."

Hinata startled as if only realizing that conversation should be flowing more naturally, and her cheeks pinked. In that pale face the color only heightened her beauty, but now that Sakura was really focusing on the lady she noticed her pale eyes did not precisely align. A lazy eye, how unfortunate.

"The yields are usually quite high, but a great deal of the land farther in is used for grazing sheep. The wool we produce usually goes to clothing the clan or other textile projects."

Sakura remembered these kinds of conversations with her father: crop rotations, the state of the livestock, various new methods he was imagining to stretch their meager holding's resources. The small river that meandered nearby was never strictly theirs but the mill that was built upon it certainly had been and farmers had sometimes come to pay a fee for the milling. She would never admit it to Ino, but she had grown up more steeped in trade than nobility for all the Harunos had an old title.

"The meat is a comfort as well," Sakura smiled. "Though to maintain this kind of self sufficiency I'm sure you have more mutton than lamb."

"Self sufficiency…" Hinata murmured with a secret smile. Sakura had sought out all the rumors of the Hyuuga through Ino before she had made this trip. The things people said about them were unkind, but Sakura felt a little wary of them since she was often the brunt of speculation as well. Isolated, they said. Cheap, they said. Humorless and strange, they said. None of it loudly, it didn't do to upset a family that large and that engrained in the military, but nobles often felt untouchable and judgmental both.

What did Ino do in these situations, Sakura wondered. Probably talk about herself. Not her favorite topic with a stranger but it would do. "Where I came from on the border the land was too rocky and too hilly so we had to terrace our fields. People who live in lowlands have all the luck."

"Is that where Prince Naruto grew up?" Hinata finally found her voice a little, Sakura was glad. Talking about Naruto was safe now that their association was common knowledge, and she was lucky she was with an audience that had a deep vested interest in the brash blond.

Sakura smiled to herself, Naruto himself had jogged her memories of those days so recently. It was easy to picture running around Jiraiya's tiny crumbling castle, or swimming in the river that was definitely too cold in spring from the runoff of the snow higher up in the mountains. If she had known that that life was idyllic she might not have chafed so hard to leave it at any cost.

"Yes, I'm sure you heard the tale at this point. It's practically the stuff of fairy stories. A lost prince raised as an orphan, evil usurpers, coming back to Konoha to usher the Leaf people into a peaceful renaissance…" Most of the good deeds had been accomplished by people older than Naruto or Sakura, people their parents' and their grandparents' age. Naruto may or may not be a figurehead while those players ran the country. But it seemed like Leaf was prospering and so Sakura was sure Naruto would be fine. She had to believe that. "Day to day, it was more like playing at being knights and then studying old books by candlelight. For me, anyway. I don't think Naruto… his royal highness, I mean… preferred books unless someone would read them to him aloud."

Hinata looked worried, so Sakura added with a laugh, "Don't worry, he can read better than most! Sir Jiraiya made sure of that."

Her words were tumbling out of her with greater speed. Had she been storing them up the past three years? It was like Hinata's silence encouraged them to flow. The woman herself seemed thoughtful, but more at ease than when Sakura first arrived. Sadness still dripped off of her, though. What might life lived away from others be like? This gilded cage was a cage nonetheless. Sakura had only been living that kind of life for a few years, but she was never idle and she wasn't strictly limited to the indoors. If all that had been expected of her was upholding the dignity of her household, then she supposed she'd look like a wilted flower as Hinata did.

"The prince is a good man. As someone who knew him for nearly two decades I can assure you of that. He'll talk your ear off, though." She made a face. "And his jokes aren't that funny."

"Thank you for reassuring me. I felt at first like I couldn't ask you, but you aren't like—" Her mouth snapped shut so hard her teeth audibly clicked and Sakura figured she knew how that sentence ended.

 _You aren't like they say._ Even a shut in knew she was weird. That stung, strangely.

Hinata picked at long strands of her glossy black hair nervously, and Sakura wondered why in the hell she was even doing this. She hadn't needed to say all that stuff about Naruto. Honestly, making all this effort just to try to get on Sasori's good side was like screaming at the sky. Pointless.

"Is the duke as fearsome as they say?"

Sakura figured she had invited this, had been the one to open up about herself unprompted. Unlike the rosy past, the present was grim and bloody. Every brutality she had witnessed hurt her heart, even if the shock of it had lessened over time. She felt the need to hoard those memories, not to protect Sasori, but to protect herself.

"Worse," Sakura answered simply, her smile now lacking engagement. She could say so many things: never be caught alone with him, never trust when he smiles, never show him your fear, but with Hinata leaving soon those points were moot. The Hyuuga was as safe as any noble could be isolated from the court.

"Have you dreamed of leaving?" Hinata looked at the stained glass window shutter depicting a bird being cradled in two hands. The question had been so soft Sakura almost hadn't heard it even in a silent room, she wondered if it had been for her ears at all.

The angry maid, Hanabi, entered with a dark-haired servant behind her bearing a tray of dried fruits, fresh bread, and tea. It was austere compared to what ladies of the court normally partook of, and Sakura wondered again what life had been like for Hinata locked in her tower. The embroidery stand near them showed exquisite work, and Sakura wondered how many concentrated hours of practice would result in such detailed finery.

"Do you like it?" Hinata's eyes were sharp and had caught Sakura lingering on her work. Perhaps that lazy eye didn't impede her vision as she thought it might.

"I haven't seen flowers like this in ages, red and purple columbine! It looks just like them, that's amazing. You could practically pluck them off the cloth." Sakura remembered a long ago lecture from Tsunade, "If you have any around, I think I know someone who wouldn't mind a starter. The Lady Chiyo doesn't have any her garden yet." The old woman needed some flowers in her life, an opinion that probably came from Ino rather than Sakura's own preference if she thought hard on it, but she had done her a favor and this could maybe show good faith to repay it someday.

Hinata took a deep breath, eyes sliding over Hanabi, and spoke with only a slight tremor at the end. "I'll send over a plant to the duchess today, and please, I want you to have this." She practically ripped the cloth from the embroidery circle and thrust it at Sakura like a blade.

"Sister!" Hanabi seemed scandalized. Sakura hid her shock over the 'maid's' exclamation. Whatever the inner hierarchy of this household was, it didn't operate like any other noble household she had experienced. Were they so uninclined to hire servants from the outside? She closed her rough hand over the thin cloth.

"How many embroidered handkerchiefs are in my trousseau outside? Hundreds I would expect. What's one less?"

Some family practice was being violated here because Hanabi's censure was clear. Maybe now that Hinata could almost taste freedom she was finding strength to do what she wanted. She would need much more of that backbone if she was going to be a queen. Naruto knew how to draw people out of their shells, and Sakura was sure Hinata had more happiness ahead of her than behind her.

"Fear not, Lady Hanabi, I'll care for this well. I'm sure every lady at court would be jealous of such a token from the Lady Hinata. Most of them couldn't make something half so delicate, I know I don't have such skill."

Hinata blushed with pleasure, picking up a cup of tea with a steadier hand than a moment ago. Sakura wished that she could have gotten to know this woman before now, because she felt a kind of ease with her that she usually only felt with Ino. Maybe someday she would be able to visit Konoha and the royal seat.

The visit proceeded under much more staid conversation of the state of the court and the weather while Hanabi was present. Bored with the topics at hand, Sakura's mind churned over the reason she shared such an easy kinship with Hinata. None of the possible answers were joyous.

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The last day of the tourney had taken place. Knowing that soon enough it was back to cold near isolation at the fortress, Sakura decided to take her place behind Sasori this evening and store up some sights and smells for the next few months. It wasn't that she thought the royal guard were insufficient, but sometimes these independent displays of subservience eased the burden of interaction with the duke in private. Their relationship had been distant at best since his transgression several days back. Sakura needed his goodwill so that she didn't have to worry about sleeping in her own bed at night in the fortress, and the return trip was coming the day after the morrow.

The Sakura of three years ago would have been in a righteous rage over her calculated compromise, and she wondered if the change was perspective, maturity, or something else. Sasori's steady campaign on her moral compass might be having some effect, despite her fighting tooth and nail to retain a core sense of herself.

Mere steps away, at the royal dais she heard a rough cough. Tilting her head to the side, brows drawing together, she watched as the Princess Temari struck her brother Kankuro smartly between his shoulder blades as he spat out bits of guinea fowl and gravy. Even royals ate too fast she supposed, but then there was something about the frantic look in his rolling eyes that sent a chill down Sakura's spine. Guards nearby helped drag the prince behind their high chairs so that they could avoid the increasing interest of the dining knights.

Sakura looked about the room, scanning for expressions in the audience. _Mark people in candid moments_ , Sasori's voice from years ago whispered in her mind, _see who takes pleasure in pain and who avert their eyes from it._ With a snort, Sakura found Count Kisame stuffing his mouth as people around him murmured. She supposed there were more than two kinds of people in the world, at least. Focusing back in on the problem at hand, she saw the royal physician running across the room from his low seat and with fury she saw what he clutched in a no doubt sweaty hand.

She started to move, but Sasori loosely grabbed her wrist. He gave the barest shake of his head, mouth outwardly grim but eyes glittering with what she knew was a curious interest. This was not his doing, her gut told her, but he didn't want her to involve herself. Perhaps the prince was no friend to her, but Kankuro had never actively gone out of his way to make her feel small like some of the men of the court. She didn't want him dead.

"Your grace," For a second he thought she was actually going to obey and his fingers skimmed down the inside of her wrist. "I'm sorry." He rose with fury that he forced himself to contain immediately as Sakura practically flew she ran so fast. The jumps she made over the tables in her way and through the people sitting at them was as graceful as deer. Skidding to a stop, she thrust her hands into a container next to the banked flames of the old hearth in the great hall and plucked out a piece of rough coal.

Next was getting close enough to Kankuro to try her hand at what she knew she needed to do. Time was of the essence. In the chaos behind the chairs of the dais Sakura dodged between guards unsure of how to fight an enemy they couldn't see attacking their prince. Perhaps she should have thought them incompetent after all; she was never so inattentive when guarding her duke.

 _Soft._ Her inner voice scoffed. She didn't know if it was Sasori's derisive laugh in her mind or her own.

"If you continue to try to force that bezoar down his throat you ignorant sawbones, then I will remove your hand from your arm!" Sakura was in a fury. The doctor looked up at her voice, ready to argue, but then shut his mouth quickly when he saw who had come for his credibility. "Your highness, please. You know whom I serve. You know who trained me." She appealed to Gaara.

Temari was too busy clutching her convulsing brother as if a tight grip could force the poison from his stomach, but Gaara was still outwardly calm and seemed to consider Sakura's words.

"My prince you can't expect this _assassin_ to know better than the medical wisdom of the ages!" The doctor clutched his useless antidote and waved it about as if that would prove his point.

"Lady Tsunade told me half the time that common medical wisdom was unproven bullshit!" She wished punching indiscriminately would win arguments more often. "He's dying!"

Gaara looked from her to the doctor and then nodded to Sakura. They fury on the doctor's face told Sakura she had made another enemy, but she cared little as she walked right over and stuck her fingers down Kankuro's throat.

"Hold him!" Sakura cried as finally a guard helped Temari to hold the prince in place, and after a few wiggles the contents of Kankuro's stomach emptied all over Sakura doublet. Ignoring the acrid smell of bile, she shot up and on the table she crushed the coal with the hilt of a knife left out by the plates until it was fine enough for her liking. Eyes scanning around, she grabbed a golden cup. "Did you drink from this?" She waved the cup in front of Gaara's face.

He nodded briefly, then watched with interest as she dropped a handful of the charcoal into the half full cup of wine. Forcing Kankuro to vomit once more, she hoped there was nothing left in his stomach and then had a guard hold back the prince's arms while Sakura forced the wine down his throat.

Noting that Kankuro was pale and shaking, she hoped she had acted fast enough. It depended on what he had been given and in what quantity. In any case, Temari was the one propping up one of her brother's arms as he was nearly dragged away to a more private location to either recover or die. Sakura respected the princess much more watching her support her brother, and the backward glances Temari gave told Sakura she had left quite the impression as well for good or ill.

Stinking of vomit, shaking from the rush of energy her body had supplied, Sakura met the clear green gaze of the crown prince.

"That was…. something, Lady Haruno." Gaara impassively surveyed the hall of faces in a way that reminded her so strongly of Sasori that Sakura felt real fear when the prince added, "For your sake, your methods had best prove effective."


	6. Chapter 6

Sasori had never come to bed that night, but it wasn't as if Sakura could sleep. After cleaning herself up she was stuck staring out of her window, shutters thrown aside to watch people mill around in the lamplight and whisper in groups until the wee hours. Guards were posted outside of her room, she knew, preventing her from going anywhere. Just a precaution, as she had essentially assaulted a prince of the realm even if it was to save his life. Honestly, she counted herself lucky she wasn't awaiting the results of her spontaneous triage in a cell. The fact that she hadn't been escorted somewhere in chains yet was promising.

It wasn't quite dawn when Sasori opened the connecting door between their rooms and leaned against the doorway, watching her huddled into a ball on her tiny mattress with a guttering lamp illuminating the room. Her mail was dripping in a corner, after the scrubbing she had had to give it, and she felt exposed in a simple tunic that served as her undershirt, and some clean hose. Tucking her bare feet underneath her at first, she grit her teeth and rose to bow.

"Your grace," The room was cold from having kept the shutters open until moments ago, but that wasn't why she shivered.

"He'll live, by some miracle. So I suppose I won't have to see you hanged today." The words were thrown out casually, but he looked furious and collected in turns. It was as if she were watching winter ice crack. "The emergency council meeting was a waste of time. Old men yelling at one another about how this sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen anymore. There hasn't been a poisoning of anyone _significant_ in decades."

"You suspect the marquis." Sakura said simply. She also thought Orochimaru had something to do with this, even if he hadn't been in the room at the time. Nothing could convince her that that look of satisfaction on Kabuto's face she saw when she had scanned the room hadn't meant something. But you couldn't accuse people on a _feeling_. She didn't have a shred of evidence.

Sasori sighed, "I always suspect the marquis. Poisoning a single target in a crowded room… too flashy for my taste." He stopped leaning in the doorway to approach her with a sneer, "But beyond that gaudy display at supper, I came back from a pointless meeting to discover no less than three missives at my door."

He produced the letters, all of different sizes but each with crests sealed upon them that she recognized.

"Would you like to guess at their contents, my lady knight?" His voice had gone sweet and low.

"If it were orders to imprison me, surely it would have already been done, your grace."

Sasori tossed them at her bare toes, but only one skidded to touch her. She flinched in a way she never did when she faced men in combat. With deliberate strides he ate up the distance left between them. Not being in her boots, she felt much smaller than usual, having to ever so slightly tilt her head to meet his gaze. He may have had a decade of life on her, a couple inches of height, a few more pounds of muscle, but his arms that suddenly tightened around her seemed to tremble and her fear held an undercurrent of triumph.

"I should have killed you the morning you shot me." Sasori bringing up their ill-fated introduction honestly startled her. He had been combing the woods near her family holding, tracking an Uchiha rebel after miles of pursuit out of his duchy. Sakura, for her part, was hunting for deer. The arrow she had let loose caught him in the back and luckily didn't puncture anything important, but she had had to cut it out of him all the same. "But the way you smiled as you took your knife to my flesh… I thought I understood that smile."

Healing people was sometimes bloody business. Sakura knew that and didn't shy away from it. Her good work after a horrendous accident had filled her with satisfaction. The stitches had been neatly done for all they had had to be improvised, and even covered with Sasori's blood she had tried to appear friendly. From some time back she had suspected he wanted a kindred spirit, but she had never thought he had already thought her one simply waiting for a little polish to hone her darker inclinations.

"I'm not like you." Her admission was to reassure herself as she had had to do every time she had killed to protect this man. The arms around her tightened.

His voice was strained. "You think I don't know that?" His mouth was so close to her ear he barely had to speak to stir up even more dread in her stomach. "I should have killed you when I realized. I should have killed you when my body began to betray me…"

"You're hurting me," She wanted to struggle in his too tight embrace, one of his hands wrapped around her upper arm so severely that she was losing feeling in her hand.

"… when I realized I couldn't even get my wretched body to fuck without thinking of you… You! If I could have burned the heart out of you then maybe I could have explained it away with simple narcissism. But then the thought of your desiccated body rotting in the sun made me want to vomit and I knew I couldn't escape this _disease_ you wrought in me."

How long? How long had she been effecting change in him while he had been campaigning to twist her into someone more like himself? She couldn't even summon disgust at his admissions, which was telling for how far he had actually carved himself a spot inside of her.

"I won't beg," Sasori gave one last squeeze then pushed her away with enough violence that Sakura hit the wardrobe behind her with a crack to the back of the head that stung quite badly and enflamed her temper. He reached for her instinctively, then balled that helping hand into a fist and gestured to the letters on the ground that had seemed to spark more truth from him in the past few minutes than she had seen pass his lips in years when it came to her. "Make your choice."

The door between them slammed and Sakura rubbed the back of her head absently and tried to calm down. A night of no sleep made everything feel like a bad dream once daylight arrived. She collected the opened letters from the floor and considered which one to read first while the throbbing in her head subsided. In the end she started with the one with the Hyuuga crest. It was too much to think beyond the moment, her mind buzzing with awareness of all the places Sasori had touched her.

It was written yesterday, she saw. Hinata's words to Sasori were in a polite but plaintive tone, requesting Sakura as an escort for her journey to Konoha as a bodyguard and travel companion. It was also the especial wish of her 'betrothed' she said. Naruto and Hinata wanted her to come to Leaf and no doubt stay a while as Hinata got settled. She could see Lady Tsunade. She could probably see her parents as well. Few people would probably notice if she never returned, having become indispensable to the monarchs of the neighboring kingdom. It was easy to see the road she'd walk if she accepted this invitation.

The second letter was from the Princess Temari. Brusque, the princess instructed Sasori to leave Sakura here for the duration of the spring and summer to provide instruction to the royal physician on the best methods to combat poison. Clearly, she said, Sasori's expertise in this area had been well received by his vassal and such wisdom could be useful in uncertain times. Making herself useful to the royal siblings as a medical advisor in an area she may have extensive knowledge in due to Sasori's own library containing a rather vast number of books on the subject and her own curiosity in reading them seemed a strange choice. She would be useful for her mind rather than for her unusual combat skills, respected and seen. From what she knew of the royal siblings, their good favor was hard to earn but once gotten particularly fierce in application. They would protect her from the ill will of the nobles and give her a comfortable academic life. She'd be able to see Ino when she liked.

This was a lot to take in. Sakura opened up the window shutter to let in the weak morning light and get some air for lungs that felt like they were barely working. Both of these letters were escape from a life of uncertainty and fear. Respect. Friendship.

The last letter was Sasori's own family crest which meant it had to be from Lady Chiyo. _Don't show the girl_ , read the first line, and Sakura smiled. The old lady had to have known Sasori was defiant enough to find that a challenge.

_The gods know I made mistakes when you were dropped at my doorstep. I had my work, as immoral as it was, and even if my medicines help hundreds now the dozens who died in my early experiments are still just as dead. You're the mirror image of my mad younger self, and I can't express the depth of my disappointment in my failure in that regard. Perhaps there's something in our blood that makes us less than human. But I didn't write you for such sentimentality, merely to remind you of your debts. Give me your Lady Haruno and in five years I'll allow you to kill me as you've no doubt always wished to do but didn't have the balls to attempt. My despicable body had begun to fail, but I don't want my knowledge to die with me. Someday you may realize the burden of the death you cause as well, if you have a shred of humanity left._

The whole family was really out of their damn minds. "You crazy old bat," Sakura thought of their conversation only days ago when she had suggested she find someone like her. Of course, Lady Chiyo wouldn't settle for an unknown if a known quantity could be secured.

Sasori hadn't written her any letter, but he never would have stood for evidence of his offer if it could be considered one. _I won't beg_ , he had said. He wanted her to stay but he couldn't bring himself to ask. Worse, he knew she had no reason to stay with him because he hadn't given her one. Years of combat training, which she had asked for, and brutal practical lessons in self-preservation were no replacement for real affection or true camaraderie. Perhaps he didn't understand how to express affection, even if he felt such an emotion towards her. Yet when she thought of leaving his side her heart persisted in an infuriating ache that told her some bit of her, not her logical mind you, was in fact loyal to the duke.

She did have a choice to make, as Sasori said. Slipping on her still damp chain shirt, she was adjusting her spare doublet when the summons came from the royal family.

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Kankuro looked like a pile of refuse laying there on an expensive couch with greasy hair and sallow countenance, but he was alive and the smile he gave when Sakura made her bows to him was irrepressible.

"The hero of the hour! Lady Haruno!"

Temari was sitting next to Kankuro, hovering protectively, and looking like she wanted to swat down her brother's limply waving hand. There was no trace of the third sibling, but Gaara was a busy man with or without murderous plots against his flesh and blood playing out around him.

"We summoned you immediately, as we weren't sure if Sasori would secret you away before we could talk to you." Temari said the words with a smirk, but she was dead serious in tone. They knew their cousin well. "Please sit."

Sakura wasn't sure how she was supposed to act. This kind of familiarity wasn't something she was used to from anyone outside of Ino or Naruto. Certainly not from the royal family. Maybe life saving efforts helped cross that gulf quickly.

"How do you fare this morning, your highness?"

"I feel like a bag of shit." Kankuro said with a lot of rancor, his voice hoarse. "But it's better than being dead, so I suppose in a relative sense I feel great!"

"Your quick thinking no doubt saved his life," Temari said, obviously restraining herself from smacking a brother still trying to recover. The candid behavior was going a long way to setting her nerves at ease. "How did you know the bezoar would not have the same effect?"

Sakura scoffed at that, "No medical book I've ever read had had anything but scornful comments about that superstitious garbage. It's no more an antidote than I am a princess." She remembered herself a bit, that this was not Ino but relative strangers she was speaking with. "Ah, I mean, antidotes to poisons take time and care to prepare, your highness. What I did was all that could be done without knowing the source of the toxin."

"The royal doctor thinks you're a witch and should be drowned straight away." Kankuro provided conversationally, as if it were a great lark.

"The royal doctor thinks I'm a witch because I told him to solve his sour breath before he gets within arm's length of me again for a physical." Temari said archly. "The good doctor should learn that women have a brain in their head and will speak their minds when they feel a need."

Their banter was so easy. It made Sakura wish she had had a sibling. It was good to hear that the doctor wasn't about to get her killed for witchcraft that was instead proven science. Tsunade had told her there would be people like that, and to pay them no mind unless there was present danger. It did no good to be right if you were dead.

"Here," Temari's suddenly handed a rolled up piece of paper with the royal seal stamped into it. "Gaara was already able to secure the needed witnesses and it will go into effect after your presentation to our father. We'd also like to grant you a boon of your choice,"

Unrolling the document in her hand she made out past the formal cursive scrawl that she was to be granted the title of Countess, and additional royal holdings near her father's barony would be signed over to her for exceptional service to the crown. It was a weird thought to realize she now outranked her own parents.

"This is more than generous…"

"It's a bit of forest in a part of the kingdom no one visits." Temari smiled but her words stung. "The title gives you a vaneer of protection and a little more clout, but a favor from Gaara is more precious than gold. Also, and I can't tell you why, my brother wanted me to tell you something else…"

Crinkling her eyes in confusion, Sakura waited for Temari to continue.

"He said 'I suggest asking for Sasori's men to be reassigned from the border' whatever that was supposed to mean. But as my brother rarely says anything without purpose I take it that that has meaning to you."

It was like the chains falling from her wrists and ankles. It was a little troubling that Gaara so quickly knew her heart's desire: the safety of her family. Had he simply monitored her as part of the surveillance that they certainly had on Sasori? Even more alarming was the prospect that they knew of Sasori's nature but turned a blind eye because he was undeniably effective at what he had been tasked militarily.

"Please tell his royal highness that I concur with his suggestion. And while I appreciate the offer to extend the medical knowledge of your physician, somehow I doubt we can have a good working relationship at this point."

Temari got a gleam in her eye, "Interesting that you see it as an invitation and not an order. I can arrange to have his mind changed." Sakura shook her head vigorously; the old man had always seemed well meaning if backwards in his thinking. The royal physicians were often more politicians by nature than field practitioners. Honestly, if she had her way all royal physicians would only be drawn from combat medics or plucked from the busiest city practices.

"I can arrange a variety of antidotes for the more common poisons and some other directions on stabilizing methods in other situations, but I'd just as soon stay far away from your doctor, your highness." One invitation unofficially declined, she thought. If only partially. The idea of being a kept academic didn't have much appeal the more she considered it.

In a flash she realized that running away with Naruto and Hinata would be just as stifling. Picking up the remains of her life and moving to Leaf was a cowardly option. There wasn't any way she could say yes to that offer, as attractive as it was, and retain a sense of self-worth. She needed to follow her own path; even if this detour through Sasori's life had been painful it had also bourn unexpected fruit. The fact that Kankuro was sitting there alive in front of her was immediate evidence. Saving his life had been more thrilling than crossing swords with uppity squires. Perhaps her dreams of being a knight had been the wrong focus of her two skill sets.

"You'll find me in residence with the dowager duchess, Lady Chiyo. She had kindly offered to open her home to me, and I think your purposes and hers with align, your highness." She didn't add that it was her wish, as well. The whisper of Sasori in the back of her mind reminded her to let people think they guided her, to move with the flow of their will and look for chances to direct it. "But it may take me some time to gather the needed supplies as the seasons progress."

Kankuro jumped in, "Money is no object, Lady. I'd shower you with jewels if I could but I'm afraid people would get the wrong idea," He looked a bit like he wanted them to get the wrong idea as his eyes lingered on her shapely legs in the tight hose. Inconvenient. Saving people could sometimes have this effect, so she had best keep her distance from the prince.

Touching her arm absently where Sasori had squeezed her too hard, she only realized what she was doing when she finally rose to leave the royal siblings to their morning business. No, begging wouldn't have changed her course. But she did feel the weight of something unfinished in regards to her duke.

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All Sakura's worldly goods fit into one small cart, and as she rode Katsuyu next to it she gave a backwards glance to where the duke seemingly watched her leave from above. He hadn't been in his suite when the maids and servants had packed her things for the trip to the duchess' small estate. Then again, he was leaving today as well for the duchy so he had other matters to see to and she was no longer his concern. Sakura owned so little, and most of it was clothes and weaponry. He could have told her to leave it all, it would have been his right, but Sasori's absence had seem like tacit approval to keep anything that might remind him she existed.

That shock of red hair on the battlements was hard to see as he kept his back to the sun, probably by design. Try as she might, she couldn't make out his face even if she squinted. It didn't matter, she had memorized those drooping lids and fine features long ago. Her mind's eye could conjure him like a specter without much conscious will.

She waved. He did not wave back.

Touching her heart, where she had stuffed Gaara's precious proclamation of her land and title in her doublet, she thought about how right after the prince, the duke himself had signed as witness. Her heartache was only uncertainty about the future, she told herself, and dropped her eyes to the way out of the castle.

The sunspots in her eyes didn't fade for long minutes, a blurry silhouette etched on her cornea.


	7. Chapter 7

The worst part about being a countess was the dresses. When not performing tasks in the workshop, or seeing to people who had increasingly started to trickle in for formal and informal medical consultation, Sakura was expected to be dressed like a real lady. Her wardrobe had exploded from a handful of dresses to a couple dozen and the initial cost had left her breathless, even if Chiyo had insisted on footing the bill from those city seamstresses that she insisted were crooks even as she admitted they had their own genius. The sneaky old woman had procured measurements for an 'apron' for the workroom, so by the time the dresses arrived Sakura had had no choice but accept them graciously along with a number of apons, sick that the duchess had spent so much outfitting her like a human sized doll.

Sasori used to surprise her with new doublets when he deemed the older ones too faded or if something tore. He wanted her to look the same every day and inconsistencies over time developed in well-worn clothing, especially in the harsh desert conditions they had lived in. Sakura had to remind herself frequently that the grandmother was not like the grandson, even if they had similar quirks in a lot of ways.

Absolute disregard for family connections seemed to be one of those quirks, because the first time Lady Chiyo's brother Lord Ebizo showed up at their door Sakura had assumed he was some friend of Chiyo's from childhood. When she had finally figured out from the context of their conversation that not only did Ebizo live an hour or two away by carriage but he also visited monthly as Chiyo refused to leave the city, Sakura was about ready to call the whole family but the kind older gentleman a lost cause.

Spring passed in a blur of medical texts and long hours mixing and chopping and drying in the storeroom, only punctuated at the end by the first day of summer which also happened to be Ino's wedding. Ino looked so happy that Sakura couldn't help but be happy for her as well even when the priest droned on with rituals to please the gods. The best thing about Ino marrying was that her relocation to Sai's household put her a little bit closer to Chiyo's neighborhood even if a tradesman would never be able to reside directly next to the aristocracy.

The high of happiness that Ino gave her was followed by despair of ever having enough trust to let someone in like that. Marriage was not her path. As a medical practitioner who specialized in pain and poison she would always be uncanny to an average suitor, and she had been under the thumb of one man long enough that she didn't want to invite it in another.

Still, by midsummer, she was sufficiently lonely that one late night drinking with Temari she stumbled out of the royal sitting room straight into the stiff retreating form of the crown prince. Those dead eyes were the wrong color, she had thought, but had felt familiar enough to remind her of something forbidden she longed for in the dead of night. Temper short from drink, she may have accidentally said a few wickedly scolding things meant for a different redhead's ears. In another time Gaara would have had her in stocks for her disrespect, but perpetually tired eyes had glinted at her even as his deep voice asked if she needed an escort to a room to lie down. He never told her which room.

Sakura had isolated herself from pretty much all social outings that happened past sunset after that low point, realizing that there was a touch of self-destruction in how quickly she had started letting herself collect hedonistic experiences. She didn't need to make up for lost time, she knew what a hangover felt like and it wasn't any different than challenging Naruto to match her drink for drink while snowed in and trying to forget how Tsunade was keeping vigil over Jiraiya's bedside as he faded.

By fall she was as predictable as a clock chiming the hour. Every morning she would get up and stretch a bit and do basic body weight exercises to wake her body up, then review her notes from the previous day's work and visitations and make revisions if she had new insights, then breakfast with Lady Chiyo who more often than not was up with the sun. There would be morning visitors now and then, and if not then Sakura would be working through an old formula of Chiyo's or reading in her room. Food and more work in the afternoon, or a visit to Ino or Temari should she need a break. She wrote to Hinata and Naruto every other week, also sending out correspondence to her parents and occasionally to Lady Tsunade to get different feedback on her new course of study.

While a great deal more pleasant than accompanying Sasori on what amounted to human hunting expeditions or watching the duke sleep at night, Sakura couldn't help but think that now with all this time to relax and collect herself together that she was terrifically bored more than in living memory. Then again, some of her more interesting memories of the fortress stalked her nightmares so perhaps boredom had more value than she gave credit.

Still, sometimes her heart longed for impossible things.

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Sakura was tired. People had been in and out all day to talk to her not only about their aches and pains but somehow also about personal problems she felt she had no real grasp on. A lady's maid who had twisted an ankle and needed some sort of splint, but felt the need to complain at great length about how her mistress made her keep watch while her lover Lord So-and-so was visiting and that's how she fell down those stairs. Or the elder nobleman who simply could not be convinced that his family wasn't slowly poisoning him for the money they sorely needed after squandering it on lavish living. Sakura had gotten very good at neutral expressions with Sasori, and she drew deep from that well today.

If no one had ever really spoken to her at court before now she was almost ready to scream from the rooftops at them to stop. The transition had been too sudden, she figured. Most of her life she had only really dealt with a few dozen people at a time, and now it felt like hundreds looked to her for answers. Even Sasori's troops had been mostly a grim horde she could ignore at the best of times. Was it a terrible thing to feel nostalgic for the silence of her cloister in the desert fortress?

 _Just think of the smell,_ she'd remind herself on the days she wanted to retreat into herself the most. This was a life she had chosen for herself, and it was getting easier bit by bit.

"Should I have really given him a small selection of common antidotes," She mused out loud to Chiyo who had spoken with the man briefly before he left for home. "It only encourages his paranoia."

"For now I suspect it's all in his mind, but people have killed for less attractive reasons than money." She saw Sakura's serious expression and patted her on the shoulder even as the duchess' small stature made the gesture humorous. "Don't worry, if you're wrong it's not like he can come complain."

She shuffled away cackling at her own macabre joke and Sakura decided that with that she was done for today and informed the staff that she wasn't taking patients. Winter wasn't yet here but the days were growing short and the cold winds that blew in from the sea felt unrelenting since there was no answering warmth in the daytime even with the sun out. Somehow, Sakura found she had a perpetually runny nose and she blamed her suddenly weak constitution on the lack of exercise in her new lifestyle.

In her room, Sakura looked at the bright stuffed couch next to the shuttered window, the dainty writing desk and plush canopied bed. The dark wardrobe dominated a wall. The only real decoration was her lone sword and shield that she had insisted be mounted above the desk, polished but worn. Sakura had reminded herself that she should get a painting or some quaint little blown glass ornaments because even if the room was brighter than the fortress and a magnitude more comfortable it still seemed sparse. What was the character of the person who lived in this room?

Searching, perhaps.

Maybe what she needed was a plant, something to care for that didn't need much in the way of attention.

Tapping a booted foot—because even if she had to wear dresses she believed in solid footwear—she heard the knock at the door and knew she didn't have the patience for anything less than an absolute medical emergency.

"Tell them to come back tomorrow!"

"But, lady," the door opened and a frightened lady's maid couldn't seem to get a word out as a glowering Sasori stood behind her, "His-his grace is—"

Her words were a whip judging by the way the maid cringed, "You're dismissed." It must have been a great relief because the woman practically ran even as she made a curtsey in passing to one or both of them. Sakura only had eyes for Sasori.

"Your grandmother is playing cards tonight with her so-called friends. Though given she comes home with handfuls of coins every other week, I can't think they like her much."

Sasori shrugged, "Skill in bluffing is hereditary for us." He hadn't entered her room yet, and she wasn't sure she should invite him. Dressed in a dark forest green, by contrast his eyes were practically amber in the lamp light. One hand was behind him, and she was getting goosebumps from her nerves firing as she tried to guess the danger coming for her.

"But you didn't come to see her. If you had meant to see her, Sasori, you would have come earlier." Occasionally she had cursed him silently or under her breath in the practice yard, and every now and then she had slipped up around Ino and once, mortifyingly, while drinking with Temari. This was the first time she had ever said his name to his face. She meant to spit it, but it was a caress.

Crossing the threshold at the invocation of his name, he pulled the door shut behind him and Sakura wondered if she should grab the sword off the wall now or hear him out. There was no obvious weapon on him, not even a dagger, but that didn't mean he wasn't deadly. He still had a hand behind his back, and now he brought forward the book clutched in his calloused palm.

"You wrote to me, Sakura." The tone was light chastisement, but she knew he approved of her suspicion. He liked being feared.

"You could have sent the book back by messenger months ago as I suggested. Though, I'm gratified you didn't burn it when you no doubt emptied out my room."

Since her tone was still combative, Sasori tossed the book casually onto the small table next to her reading couch. It landed with a hard splat that would have startled her, but she was too focused on her visitor. The disdain in his voice was more familiar than the courtly tones earlier. "A twisted bed frame, a rotting desk, and a few pitiful swatches of cloth. It didn't even fuel the hearth for an evening."

"You may be a duke, but I'm no longer your vassal. I could have you thrown out right now. You should make your bows to Lady Chiyo if you wanted this to be above board." Getting the sword out would take too long, and she'd have to stand on the desk to get to it. From behind the headboard of her bed, where she had fastened it, she pulled a long dagger from its scabbard. "I had thought you would come for me sooner or later, but I had thought you would at least last the year,"

He looked closer to laughter than murderous rage. "You must be spoiling for a fight, my lady, because from where I'm standing you've got me at a disadvantage. I would not come to my family home armed. If you don't believe me…" He lifted both his arms up, lightly threading his fingers in his artfully messy red hair and tilted his head to the side.

Sakura held out her dagger and approached, used the tip of the blade to turn his head this way and that. She circled to the back of him and then aggressively patted down his doublet. When her hands reached his hose, she lightly skimmed fingers down solid legs before reaching into his boot to pull out the blade she knew waited there. Backing up, she sheathed her blade at the bed once more and tossed his underneath for good measure with a sharp clatter.

"Would you believe me if I said I had forgotten about that one?" Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, according to him, she was sure. Gracefully, his arms settled back to his sides.

Her expression was telling, but then she sighed. "Ok, if you aren't here to kill me, and I suppose you wouldn't have intended to given just how many witnesses probably saw you enter this home then please tell me what could possibly bring Sasori of the Red Sands to my doorstep?"

Looking around once more, lip curling a bit at the subtle femininity of Sakura's inner sanctum he made himself comfortable on her reading couch while she crossed her arms in his general direction.

"You're a riddle to me, Sakura," Sasori looked at her as if he'd like to dissect her. Given who he was, he might actually desire that. "Outwardly you act as if you want nothing to do with me, and yet you wrote me not once but twice in the past year. One of those times you implored me to write to my grandmother and assure her that I wasn't preparing to kill her."

Lips in a tight line, Sakura tried to explain herself, "She constantly brings it up as motivation for me to learn faster, but while I'm smart I can't memorize her whole library of notes in a year or even three. Five years isn't enough time, and you couldn't possibly seriously have taken up her offer…"

"That's between me and the old woman and you shouldn't concern yourself," Sasori smoothly interrupted then blandly changed the subject. "You used a favor from Gaara himself to have my troops dismissed from your father's barony, but then you offered to have them located to plots of land you now own if they wished to continue the rural life. They are still my vassals, even those handful that stayed against all reason in that backwater. Why would you invite such complications?"

Her father had written to her. Of the dozen men Sasori had left behind, apparently a handful of them had grown accustomed to the pace of life there. A couple had found wives and one had already had a child. Until she could get real farmers set up with housing on her property, with help from her father, it had seemed like a natural thing to let people continue a life they had built. Sasori was right that it had complicated things, though.

"I didn't do it to give you a riddle to solve, I assure you. I still remember what you did to that bard last winter."

Sasori was unrepentant, "I merely gave him time to think of less elementary riddles in an environment free of distractions."

"A dungeon is hardly conducive to creativity." She rubbed at her temples as if the tension headache that was coming on would fade faster. The longer he was here and not presenting a clear threat, the harder it was to stay firm in her resolve to forget about him and move on with life.

That had been a problem though, forgetting in general. The mind had a way to take the familiar and make is nostalgic, even if it was horrifying. Sakura had come to dread certain things. Dressing certain kinds of bloody wounds sometimes gave her flashbacks to the few times she had been injured badly in a skirmish and Sasori was the only one with enough medical knowledge at the fortress to patch her up. He had sewn her flesh together more than once with neat efficiency she envied, pressing poultices on open wounds to keep them from festering. Inevitably thinking about those moments he had touched her gently would lead to thinking about the tourney in spring and how he had made her feel with a few deft strokes of his fingers. That memory had come to find her more than once in the middle of the night.

Heat had crawled up her neck into her face. Sakura fought it back with weak anger. "Say your piece and leave."

"You have my crest on your bedroom wall." He slumped forward; long fingers tented. "Would I be wrong to assume you still have your livery in that wardrobe full of pretty dresses?"

"It was well made," She snapped defensively, "Waste not and all that…" She couldn't say why she had kept the shield. It was a constant visual reminder, dented and scratched as it was. Despite bearing his crest, she saw it as comforting. It reminded her that not only had she survived but thrived in truly adverse circumstances. That shield made her feel strong.

Unfolding from his seated position, he took a step towards Sakura. "I had thought to burn you out, but it seems my attention eliminated impurities and made you more quintessentially you. As you suspected I'm furious with you, but I'm equally curious." He had moved slowly in her direction, using a calm tone that belied his stated anger. She'd seen him use this move to tame horses and ambush men in the middle of negotiations, Sakura wondered where on the spectrum she fell. "I've already seen you forged in blood, perhaps this new setting will illuminate the way to break you..."

Why had she let him get so close? To slither through her thoughts and ignite feelings in her body she didn't have words for except in battle. Passion with this man was a mistake, but after months of what if scenarios playing through her mind she realized she wanted this knowledge. Instincts that had encouraged split second decisions in battle solidified the path she needed to take. If nothing else, this would be on her terms.

"Just so we're absolutely clear about this, you still disgust me on nearly every level from moral to emotional." The hands she placed on his hips could feel the structure of the bone and wondered at how narrow they were. Already furious with herself for what she had decided to do, she pushed a mildly surprised Sasori back until his folding knees forced him to sit back down on her low couch. "But you're not the only one who's curious."

Emboldened by finally being the aggressor in their interactions, Sakura leaned down to cover Sasori's mouth with her own. He wasn't moving, lightly chapped lips partially parted as Sakura tugged at them with nipping kisses. Cracking open her eyes she saw that he was staring at her, whites visible, and she straightened up and kicked one of his booted feet with her own.

"Don't keep your eyes open like that, it's unsettling."

No words in response to her order, Sasori instead closed eyes dark and uncertain and Sakura made a satisfied noise low in her throat as she hiked up her skirts and straddled his lap to have easier access to those lips. It was when Sakura ground herself down on his more than budding erection that Sasori seemed to realize he could participate in this as well as his hands moved up her skirts to grip thighs that had lost a bit of tone in the past months but remained firm.

Chapped lips, dry hair, a hint of bristle on his face—now that Sakura was this close, she could sense all the telltale signs of how he wasn't caring for himself like he used to when she was his bodyguard. This was a man who may have lived like a savage warlord in the dessert but he was a courtier in the city. Maybe not the courtier today, with her. Had he ridden here _unprepared_? That made her more breathless than the deep kisses they shared to think he had been that eager to see her.

The was nothing like the distant memories she had created with Naruto, or even that mortifying fumbling attempt with another rusty haired sociopath that had left her numb and regretful. Hormonal surges may have shocked her with their intensity as soon as her stress levels had receded out of Sasori's presence, but their upsetting focus always remained the same. Even if she wished it weren't true. Gods, she wanted him.

"If you move your hands I swear I'll beat you to death with that book," Sakura was furious with herself, feeling all the empirical evidence of her body's betrayal from aching breasts to a core already slick and ready for a man that she should by rights have banished from her presence the moment that door opened.

She pulled out his hard cock easily from his clothes and moved her own undergarments aside to create the opportunity to sink down onto him. As ordered he kept his hands on her thighs, his grip tightening as she took him in to the base. While not exactly girthy, he was well proportioned enough to pleasure a partner and Sakura was tight from inexperience and time. She knew the feeling of her own fingers inside of her sex, but this was quite different and wholly unfamiliar because of the dissonance of knowing it was Sasori under her.

"You'll never get rid of me now," Sasori murmured into Sakura's ear before she began to move over him. He seemed to have lost his words again as she guided their pace, and any question whether his apparent rapture was an act was dispelled long minutes in when just as she was starting to figure out the right angle to fuck him that would coach her own body to release he made a gurgling noise and thrust her away from him as he spilled himself out in the air. There had been little warning other than his fingers digging painfully into her leg muscles.

Well, if she needed evidence of her effect on him that was fairly unambiguous.

Shivering and unsatisfied, Sakura turned to grab today's work apron from the back of her desk chair and tossed it over to Sasori so that he could clean himself. After all, the cloth would need to be cleaned tomorrow anyway so what was another stain.

Cheeks flushed, skin glowing with a thin layer of sweat, Sakura thought Sasori had never looked more real than in the aftermath of losing control of his own body under her. He was shaking a little, as he put himself in the semblance of order again. Usually, it was his partners coming. Usually, it was his partners being ejected from his presence. Knowing how disgusted he was by the fluids of others she wondered how he had managed to lose himself in her.

"This isn't over," he growled, and Sakura knew better than to try to lead the way this time as he pulled her down to the couch and pushed her skirts back up. Probing fingers found her entrance and pushed in, first one then two. She had admired those long fingers before, the delicacy with which they moved as he formed his well-bred cursive letters and then the strength to gut his enemies on raids against the insurgents. Her body had been climbing towards something incredible before, and now his deft hands brought her right to the brink.

Right before she was about to come she felt him shift position so that he was partially leaning over her. Sasori's mouth came down on hers to swallow her cry of release, tense body arching then sagging boneless back down onto the couch. His tongue gave hers a quick caress before he pulled away. When Sakura finally sat up, pushing her skirts back in place she saw him using another part of her apron to wipe her fluids from his hand. She wondered if he would rush home to bathe.

When he turned back to her there was a careful blankness that she couldn't place in his pantheon of expressions. Maybe he didn't even know he was doing it. He looked lost.

"I have conditions." Sakura announced, clearing her throat when her voice came out scratchy to her ears. She wasn't even going to pretend like she didn't want to repeat this mistake a few more times. Maybe even in a bed, though not her bed.

"All the best things come with strings." There was a hint of arrogance returning to his voice. "I'm listening."

Sakura tried to smooth fingers through her hair while she spoke to catch out any tangles. It was a little longer now that she didn't have to have it cut to her chin every month. "No more whoring yourself out if you expect to do this again. I'm not looking to share."

"I'd say the same of you." There was a glint in his eye that said she needed to keep a safe distance from the crown prince for the foreseeable future. He wouldn't have known what a mistake she thought that had been, based out of desperation and Gaara's resemblance to the real target of her grotesque desire.

"And no one is to know; even if they guess it, I expect you to lie." This was the most crucial thing. As soon as they were discovered her credibility would plummet, she would be his pawn that had been used to infiltrate. Once more an extension of Sasori's will.

Sasori scoffed, "And what of you? Your skills at deception are rudimentary at best."

Sakura was deadly serious, "I will just tell them that only a fool would love Sasori of the Red Sands." The sinking feeling she got around him was particularly strong right now.

"Deflect with an unrelated truth, not a bad tactic."

It was less unrelated than she liked. Something in her expression must have given it away because he narrowed his eyes at her briefly before standing up quickly, breathing erratic.

"I expect you to return my dagger to me in pristine condition." He straightened out his clothes, adjusting everything as if he hadn't been ravished minutes ago. The fussiness of his actions and the lightheaded aftermath of her climax struck Sakura as humorous, and she imperfectly stifled a giggle. The look he cut her would have made her cringe back in fear a year ago, but now she knew she had him cornered by the slight tremor in his hands. He wanted something from her that he couldn't achieve with terrorism.

Sakura stood up as well and fastened the bottom clasp of his doublet that he had overlooked. Her gentle smile was simply the beginning of what she expected to be a long spiraling descent into worry and self-loathing tonight, but he obviously misinterpreted it because he caught her lips once more.

He broke away suddenly, angry at his own weakness, no doubt. "Witch…" He hissed, but his hands on her were gently smoothing down her back.

"Allegedly." Sakura replied, sure that her heart was falling out of her chest even now.


End file.
